Feeder
Comfort In Sound

THE REVIEW

Pain generates multiple reactions in human beings.

Translating pain into music is one of the hardest challenges a musician can face: recently, Radiohead have tried it with albums that, for many people, represent a moving cry for help through the grooves of Thom's whiny and beautiful voice. But the pain of losing someone who, until that moment, had shared the dream of a lifetime with you can potentially destroy anyone. Not the Feeder, who opt for the motto "life goes on" and decide to move forward after their drummer's suicide, with former Skunk Anansie Richardson.

And it is one of the few cases where the fans fully understand an almost total style change in their favorites' music, continuing to support them: the aggressive rock of their beginnings and the playful guitar-pop of "Echo Park," the catchy ear-worm singles like "Buck Rogers" and "Seven Days In The Sun," make way for fluid and touching pop writing. Sure, some outbursts remain (frankly unnecessary in the album's economy, like the Foo Fighters-esque "Come Back Around," the album's lead single), but are rather subdued as in "Helium," where the guitars recall Billy Corgan's Pumpkins (specifically, those of "Zero").

The opener "Just The Way I'm Feeling," introduced by the same chords as Gallagher's "Wonderwall," already gives a sense of what's to come: "I feel we're going down/ten feet below the ground/it's just the way I'm feeling." The track reveals itself as one of the album's gems, followed by the aforementioned rock numbers. Then, "Child In You" takes us back to purely soft-pop territories, leading us into the title-track, the most melodically beautiful chorus in the entire discography of the British trio. "You tear yourself apart/wishing to be born again/a different man": Grant sings a pain so intense that he wants to be someone else to avoid bearing it. Subsequently, in the nth ballad "Forget About Tomorrow," a new day brings a bit of peace, hoping that tomorrow doesn't reopen the abyss ("today it all feels fine/a sense of freedom fills your mind/can't think about tomorrow"). And, if "Summer's Gone" brings back the beloved, old Radiohead of the monumental "The Bends," "Godzilla" distracts the listener with barely two minutes of pure guitar fury, although the work's general theme doesn't falter ("live life in overdrive/lost love in suicide").

The hope in love is the theme expressed in "Quick Fade" (which pairs with "Child In You" in terms of sound), while "Love Pollution" and "Find The Colour" are two well-crafted pop-rock numbers and nothing more, leading us to the closure with "Moonshine," in which Grant desperately asks the lost friend "Oooh… won't you come back to me." No, obviously he won't return, but with this magnificent album, it's as if he has come back to life at least one more time.