One of the hardest things about reviewing, especially towards the upper end of the score spectrum, is trying to guesstimate how you’ll feel about a record in a year’s time. Sometimes you love something at first listen but there’s no staying power. Sometimes there’s some flaws, but the more you listen the less you mind. Dead Feathers’ debut All is Lost is definitely in the second category. I 3.5’d it at the time, but it’s been a regular staple since. I was conveniently listening to it and wondering when there’d be another record not a couple of days before Full Circle came in. Of course, now I’m unavoidably comparing it to an album ten years in the making that’s spent four years growing on me.
Dead Feathers play a fuzzy psychedelic rock, emphasis on the rock, in the vein of Black Mountain or Dead Meadows. The obvious selling point is Marissa Belu’s fantastic Grace Slick-meets-Elin Larsson (Blues Pills) vocals. But the instrumental side is no slouch either, with an ear for a great melody or a catchy riff. Songs range from the pretty fingerpicked acoustic guitar of “Galapagos” and contemplative “The Swell” through the fuzzy, upbeat riffing and powerful vocals of “Lightning” or “Full Circle.” The latter is a perfect example of their work, flowing between moods; catchy, pretty, and rocking all at once.
Unfortunately, Full Circle exhibits a bit of a slide into psych rock’s greatest foible: long stretches of guitar noodling that don’t really go anywhere. Nearly all the proper songs here are over six minutes. Most of them have significant instrumental sections. There’s nothing wrong with a slow burn, and for example “Robbery” does this well. But it’s every song (plus an interlude), and it’s often a long section tacked onto the end rather than any sort of build-up (“Full Circle,” “Daughters”). The result is the album’s momentum getting sapped away at every turn. This is made worse by contrast to All is Lost, which was mostly in the 3-5 minute region with just a couple of longer tracks. One of the things I loved about that record was how tight the writing was, and it’s disappointing to find them succumbing to psych-itis.
This is all the more frustrating as there’s significant growth in evidence here. The vocal writing displays a series of genuinely sublime moments. The “Get out of my way” line on “Daughters,” “This is what you wanted” towards the end of “Robbery,” and the run-up to “I’m not dead because I made it out alive!” on “Full Circle” all grab me every time. Indeed, the lesson here is Marissa Belu doesn’t need to belt to be a great vocalist, which I absolutely support. She’s versatile and a joy to listen to. Likewise, instrumentally there’s plenty of good passages (the melodies on “Full Circle,” the gallopy drum build on “Robbery”) and elegant transitions (the tempo shift into the final section of “Daughters,” the step up a couple of minutes into “The Swell”). I just wish they’d kept the highlights here and trimmed the fat.
Full Circle is a frustrating example of almost, but not quite, getting what I wanted. It’s consistently good and regularly great. It’s meaningfully improved over its predecessor in a number of important ways. And yet in the process, it’s lost a bit of the intensity and immediacy that really set them apart from their peers. I enjoy Full Circle, it’s a solid addition to their catalog and gives me a lot of hope for their future work. I also can’t help but be a teeny bit let down.
Rating: Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Ripple Music
Websites: facebook.com/deadfeathersband | instagram.com/deadfeathersband
Releases Worldwide: September 22nd, 2023
