Weekly > Reviews
Features, The - Exhibit A
Sometimes an established artist will offer a bit of patronage to the lesser known upstarts, giving them a quick ‘peg up’ to get them over the initial barrier, it certainly did James no harm to have Morrissey championing them with every early release.
So it seems it hasn’t done The Features any harm either, everyone’s favourite mutton chopped American four-piece the Kings of Leon have already firmly nailed their colours to The Features mast, taking them on tour with them at their personal request and declaring them their favourite band.
This I must add gets mentioned in every interview, press release and review (so why should I be any different folks before you start!). The truth is though that the main reason they are starting to get press coverage and a growing fanbase is because they are a bloody good band, who know how to knock a tune together, can play live and don’t hang about on a track longer than they need to!
From the blistering opening title track ‘Exhibit A’ at two minutes and four seconds, to the very last chord of ‘Circus’ every note in this album is there to enhance the track not to extend it. ‘The Way It’s Meant To Be’ is almost a pure punk track, even ‘Me And The Skirts’ would in another bands hands have really plodded into Runrig territory, fortunately The Features are far sharper than most and don’t fall into the trap, turning it instead into a rattling speeded up celtic rocker.
Recent single ‘Blow It Out’ is a euphoric call to musical arms with it’s “ooh ooh oooh ooh’s” coming out in all the right places and then comes the best track on the album ‘There’s A Million Ways To Sing The Blues’ which was my introduction to the band well over a year ago, it’s still one of the most underrated singles of the last two years.
- Features, The
- Exhibit A (2005)
- Category: Album
- Label: Universal Records
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 28 May 2005
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
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Add to favouritesEven on the slightly slower tracks like ‘Exorcising Demons’ it’s still fairly relentless stuff as they show The White Stripes how you are supposed to produce garage rock blues without turning it into filler.
The pace never lets up on the remaining tracks and I promise you once you’ve listened to it once you’ll be reaching for the repeat button. A special mention has also got to go to the vocalist Matthew Pelham who just has something in his vocals that reminds me of The Kitchens Of Distinction frontman if you can remember them, a real individual vocal that i’d love to hear live.
Well if you ask me four God-botherers from America and one atheist from Leeds can’t be wrong can they?
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We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
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