Album Review: Feeder - Black / Red
Reviewed by Tim Finch
As of 2024 Feeder have been an active outfit for thirty years, quite an achievement for any band. For feeder they have had their well documented trials and tribulations along the way, the journey for success is never easy, but they have come out the other side with three decades of memories and music.
Having burst onto the scene properly in 1997 with ‘Polythene’, the band continued to grow their success through eleven solid studio albums. Off the back of their recent UK tour they release album number twelve ‘Black/Red’ a humongous double album that completes the trilogy started with previous record ‘Torpedo’ and continues the themes and conversations started there in.
The atmospheric intro track ‘Droids’ kicks off the “Black” half of the album, setting the listener up for what is to come. What follows is a ethereal musical journey that the band takes the listener on, taking in muscular riffs, sky-scraping melodies and heartfelt sentiment.
Tracks like ‘Playing With Fire’ encompasses Muse-esq heavy riffs that allow them to explore sounds and avenues they’ve previously steered clear off. Less the happy go lucky indie rock and of a more dark and gritty nature instead.
Vocalist Grant Nichols comments “I really wanted the album to be split in two parts for the listener, CD1 and CD2, black and red rather than be one long player, almost like a musical production with an interval.”
There is a definitive difference as the “Red” half kicks off. ‘Sleeping Dogs Lie’ has a fast pace to it, old school Feeder at their peak which continues on through ‘Scream’, whilst ‘Submarine’ combines elements of 90’s grunge with softer rock ballads to great effect.
Often when you think of double albums you wince; two records with lots of filler, that could easily have been cut down to one superb album. With ‘Black/Red’ Feeder have managed to avoid the pitfalls so many before them have fallen to. There is not a single minute of filler on either disc, instead we have two great albums packaged together as one.
The double album format can be daunting for the listener, but ‘Black/Red’ is well worth the investment in time. This truly is Feeder at their very best.
