Feeder – “Best Of” [Album Review]

Say the name Feeder here in North America, and most people won’t associate the word being synonymous with a hit-making rock and roll band. For over two decades now, the Welsh band have been delivering top-tier rock anthems – boasting twenty Top 40 singles, selling over 5 million record sales, including 3 Platinum and 2 Gold Albums. Feeder has drawn comparisons to bands like Smashing Pumpkins, The Pixies, Talk Talk, The Police and Nirvana. Take a little time and google their cover of “Can’t Stand Losing You” and prepare to be amazed.

After the release of 2016’s All Bright Electric, returning them to the top 10, the band, primarily comprised of Grant Nicholas and Taka Hirose, found themselves in the precarious spot of being twenty years into their careers as Feeder, and overflowing with a desire to continue creating new material. This “Best Of Feeder” album stems from the group wanting to release a best of compilation with the inclusion of a few new songs with the intent of making it a double album. Grant and Taka wound up writing and recording NINE new songs, and are releasing “Best Of” in multiple formats:

The brand new, comprehensive collection will be available digitally, as a deluxe packaged 4 disc vinyl, deluxe 3CD collection or standard double CD. Both deluxe options will include a brand new nine track Feeder album, Arrow, and the double CD will feature four of those new tracks. Including the new single “Veins”. Feeder’s 13th album will be released via BMG on September 29th.

The deluxe package features 50 songs – over three hours of Feeder music. The 41 songs culled together to be their “Best Of” showcase the songwriting prowess of one of England’s finest singer-songwriters, Grant Nicholas. Nicholas’ ability to craft sweeping musical soundscapes time and time again put him in the same musical pantheon as James Dean Bradfield, Chris Martin, Gary Lightbody, Kelly Jones and the brothers Gallagher. All 41 of the songs included on this retrospective are beautiful examples of Feeder’s undying British pop sensibility. If one needs to start somewhere, I will put forward “Come Back Around,” “Insomnia,” “Seven Days In The Sun,” “Tumble And Fall,” “Suffocate,” and “Children Of The Sun” – random samples of greatness from an unfaltering hit-making band.

Arrow, the nine new songs included with this deluxe “Best Of” package is the audio equivalent of donning a comfortable shirt from a clothing company you love; you can throw it right on and ‘walk away’ smiling. The new song entitled “Walk Away” plays like a studio outtake from the Comfort In Sound era of Feeder. “Veins” is one of the best tunes Nicholas has written in the past twenty years, both musically and lyrically. “Sound Of Birds” boasts a Weezer-esque bounce that harkens back to some of the finer songs on Echo Park. And “Landslide” is a blisteringly fast pop-punk track that throws back to their original Swim EP.

Most Best-Of compilations tend to be a cash-grabbing marketing vehicle of old classics with a token new song to market as a single. Best Of Feeder happens to be an excellent nine song new album with 41 bonus old songs thrown in there for good measure – and it’s totally worth the money it will cost you.

Best Of Track Listing:

01. Feeling A Moment
02. Come Back Around
03. Eskimo
04. Just The Way I’m Feeling
05. Forget About Tomorrow
06. Just A Day
07. Insomnia
08. Comfort In Sound
09. High
10. Buck Rogers
11. Pushing The Senses
12. Turn
13. Renegades
14. Lost & Found
15. Tender
16. Yesterday Went Too Soon
17. Shatter
18. Borders
19. Seven Days In The Sun
20. Piece By Piece
21. Another Day On Earth
22. We Are The People
23. Universe Of Life
24. Idaho
25. Tumble And Fall
26. Crash
27. Silent Cry
28. Find The Colour
29. Day In Day Out
30. Down By The River
31. Paperweight
32. Tangerine
33. Cement
34. Suffocate
35. Side By Side
36. Stereo World
37. Paperfaces
38. Save Us
39. Tracing Lines
40. Miss You
41. Children Of The Sun
42. Figure You Out
43. Walk Away
44. Bees
45. Veins
46. Sound Of Birds
47. Arrow
48. Dive
49. Sirens
50. Landslide

Run Time: 190:02
Release Date: September 29, 2017

Check out the video for the single “Veins”