Douglas Martin only endorses the wearing of fur in rare circumstances.
In the past three years or so, girl-group garage has gone from a flourishing sub-genre to a crowded scene. From the punk fury of Vivian Girls to the ethereal bliss of Costa Rican grunge band Las Robertas, it’s gotten to the point where it’s getting hard to stay abreast. With more and more bands taking the basic template and splintering off into endless directions like art-damaged surf (Grass Widow) or sultry rockabilly (the Sandwitches), new bands crafting themselves in the girl-group garage framework stand a chance of being lost in the shuffle, like hardcore bands in ‘86 or shoegaze bands in ‘95.
Brisbane quartet Feathers (not to be confused with the sprawling art-folk collective from Vermont) has passed the garage band bar exam with flying colors. Harmonies stir in the background, reverb is applied as liberally as currant on burnt toast, names like 13th Floor Elevators, the Velvet Underground, and the Jesus and Mary Chain are listed as influences. At times, the band sounds like what would happen if the latter band actually consisted entirely of women instead of just the Reid brothers wishing the band consisted entirely of women. The album’s opening track is even titled “Darklands.”
The band’s bona fides and overtures are in their perfect places, but what exactly sets Feathers apart from all the other bands of their kind breaking strings on their Fender Jaguars and blowing their Peavey Amplifiers? Psychocandy— easily one of the most trailblazing, influential, and downright great guitar records of the past thirty years– has seen its third or fourth round of renewed interest thanks to bands like Crystal Stilts and Dum Dum Girls. What does a band have to do in order to siphon that influence into something fresh? Do Feathers succeed here?
You may not be able to pick Hunter’s Moon out of a crowd of vinyl slabs full of tinnitus-inducing distortion, but that doesn’t mean Feathers aren’t good at what they do. They’re just as good at woozy funeral marches as they are hazy pop bangers, and nothing on the album settles into run-in-the-mill territory like, say, most of Only in Dreams. The band also succeeds from throwing in a few overdriven punk tunes reminiscent of the forward propulsion of Sleater-Kinney, even throwing in a little harmonica on album highlight “Cat Burglar.”
Hunter’s Moon is packed to the brim with the focus and confidence of bands around twice as long, with the energy of bands twice as young. The only thing the album suffers from is a lack of a true identity, which probably won’t help erase their near total obscurity. But Feathers have a ton of promise, and that should be enough to get them by until they truly find themselves.
Download:
MP3: Feathers-“Darklands”
