If I was 20 years younger I’d be confused about a lot of things, but one of them would be just why the music press go on and on and on about how great and important punk was, yet as soon as any band comes along that sounds pre-1976 they go nuts.
The Feeling are being hailed as the pioneers of the new soft rock movement. They cite Queen and The Carpenters as influences and I find it hard not to love them just a bit. Twelve Stops And Home isn’t exactly the REO Speedwagon tribute you might expect, but it does come free of any rough edges. It succeeds because they have a few really good songs and Dan Gillespie Sells has enough of an English twang to place them resolutely on this side of the Atlantic, as well as the 1980s.
That Carpenters reference isn’t quite so strange either, as the likes of ‘Never Be Lonely’ and ‘Sewn’ do have an unmistakeable air of understated emotion about them. It’s nowhere near enough to sustain them to the lengths of a whole album just yet, but with the novelty aspect toned down in favour of a more subtle nod to the past (Justin Hawkins take note) they may earn themselves a surprisingly robust career.