Paid To Think
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Post: 2585 of 5107
Member ID: 187
Joined: Jul. 11, 2002
Posted Wednesday, January 28, 2004 at 1:33 PM
Post 1 of 6
According to a friend who works at the paper, the print edition (out tonight or tomoorow I think) will feature a full-color picture. Awesome!
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The Next Wave
Local band The Features build momentum with recent signing to Universal, which plans to issue an EP and an LP this year
By Noel Murray
Following your creative instincts isn't necessarily bad for business, as evidenced by the case of local alt-poppers The Features. Emerging from the bright-and-busy Murfreesboro scene of the mid-'90s, the Sparta-based band immediately attracted attention for bandleader Matt Pelham's smooth melodies and the band's clean, warm, almost new wave-ish sound. They were like The Cars and R.E.M. in one chipper package, and they seemed bound for big things before they hit their 25th birthdays. But label trouble and personnel shuffling slowed The Features' momentum, and after a year or two of quiet retooling, Pelham returned in 2001 with the EP The Beginning, sporting new overtones of garage psychedelia and an alternately moving and amusing set of lyrics about his newborn twins.
Since then, tireless touring and a mounting buzz around The Beginning brought The Features back into the view of a music industry scrambling to satisfy the public's sudden craving for loud, sloppy guitar-pop. But even when Pelham was promoting The Beginning, he admitted that the record's naive charm and slaphappy sound weren't a permanent direction for the band. Speaking to the Scene almost three years ago, Pelham said, "We don't stick to one vein. We have songs that sound more disco. The next thing we do might have more synthesizers."
To give the eager record label folks a better sense of their range, The Features knocked out some demos in keeping with their more muscular live shows (which they also demonstrated in a series of label showcases). Interest in the band intensified, and they eventually signed with Universal, who'll be reissuing The Beginning in March with an additional track (the band's UK single "The Way It's Meant to Be"), followed by an LP later this summer. The full-length record is already finished; it was recorded at Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, Miss., with producers Craig Krampf and Mike McCarthy, who have worked on records ranging from the mainstream pop of Steve Perry and Take 6 to the edgier rock of bands like And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and Spoon.
According to Pelham, the album will consist of "more or less the band's favorite songs from the past couple of years"--a sort of greatest hits from The Features' time in pop exile. The project includes tracks like "Blow It Out," with its circus organ, thick power chords and cooing bridge; the upwardly marching "Leave It All Behind," with its snaky keyboard-guitar backdrop; and the sweetly ferocious "Someway, Somehow," which could almost be a power ballad if it weren't pumping away at 100 miles an hour. The recent Features material synthesizes the hooky sound of the band's early days with their late-developing kitchen sink rattle, and presents the finished soup at high heat.
That's probably what attracted Fierce Panda, the hip UK indie, to The Features. A set of London shows last July got the overseas press buzzing about having found the next Strokes or Kings of Leon--an American act to break first on the isle, in other words--and the label behind Coldplay's earliest work and the foreign distribution of Death Cab For Cutie and Polyphonic Spree jumped on the band, putting out The Beginning in the fall of '03. The Features are currently back in the UK, touring and promoting their upcoming single.
It's taken longer than some expected, but Pelham thinks the way his band is finally breaking is appropriate, given the way that they've developed at their own pace while waiting for the music business to catch up. "The industry seems to be paying more attention to bands that are somewhat similar to us," Pelham admits. "I think this is a good time for The Features."
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All content is © 1995-2004 Nashville Scene unless otherwise noted.
__________________________________________________________
The Next Wave
Local band The Features build momentum with recent signing to Universal, which plans to issue an EP and an LP this year
By Noel Murray
Following your creative instincts isn't necessarily bad for business, as evidenced by the case of local alt-poppers The Features. Emerging from the bright-and-busy Murfreesboro scene of the mid-'90s, the Sparta-based band immediately attracted attention for bandleader Matt Pelham's smooth melodies and the band's clean, warm, almost new wave-ish sound. They were like The Cars and R.E.M. in one chipper package, and they seemed bound for big things before they hit their 25th birthdays. But label trouble and personnel shuffling slowed The Features' momentum, and after a year or two of quiet retooling, Pelham returned in 2001 with the EP The Beginning, sporting new overtones of garage psychedelia and an alternately moving and amusing set of lyrics about his newborn twins.
Since then, tireless touring and a mounting buzz around The Beginning brought The Features back into the view of a music industry scrambling to satisfy the public's sudden craving for loud, sloppy guitar-pop. But even when Pelham was promoting The Beginning, he admitted that the record's naive charm and slaphappy sound weren't a permanent direction for the band. Speaking to the Scene almost three years ago, Pelham said, "We don't stick to one vein. We have songs that sound more disco. The next thing we do might have more synthesizers."
To give the eager record label folks a better sense of their range, The Features knocked out some demos in keeping with their more muscular live shows (which they also demonstrated in a series of label showcases). Interest in the band intensified, and they eventually signed with Universal, who'll be reissuing The Beginning in March with an additional track (the band's UK single "The Way It's Meant to Be"), followed by an LP later this summer. The full-length record is already finished; it was recorded at Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, Miss., with producers Craig Krampf and Mike McCarthy, who have worked on records ranging from the mainstream pop of Steve Perry and Take 6 to the edgier rock of bands like And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and Spoon.
According to Pelham, the album will consist of "more or less the band's favorite songs from the past couple of years"--a sort of greatest hits from The Features' time in pop exile. The project includes tracks like "Blow It Out," with its circus organ, thick power chords and cooing bridge; the upwardly marching "Leave It All Behind," with its snaky keyboard-guitar backdrop; and the sweetly ferocious "Someway, Somehow," which could almost be a power ballad if it weren't pumping away at 100 miles an hour. The recent Features material synthesizes the hooky sound of the band's early days with their late-developing kitchen sink rattle, and presents the finished soup at high heat.
That's probably what attracted Fierce Panda, the hip UK indie, to The Features. A set of London shows last July got the overseas press buzzing about having found the next Strokes or Kings of Leon--an American act to break first on the isle, in other words--and the label behind Coldplay's earliest work and the foreign distribution of Death Cab For Cutie and Polyphonic Spree jumped on the band, putting out The Beginning in the fall of '03. The Features are currently back in the UK, touring and promoting their upcoming single.
It's taken longer than some expected, but Pelham thinks the way his band is finally breaking is appropriate, given the way that they've developed at their own pace while waiting for the music business to catch up. "The industry seems to be paying more attention to bands that are somewhat similar to us," Pelham admits. "I think this is a good time for The Features."
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All content is © 1995-2004 Nashville Scene unless otherwise noted.
Daigle is all we need to make the night complete
Quote from carligula on Jan. 28, 2004 at 2:33 PM
