Feels – Feels
Feels. That’s what emoticon-happy kids call emotions and this LA four-piece’s are all over the place. One minute the rickety garage-pop on their S/T debut is up, the next their cutesy melodies come at you steel-blades slashing, rowdy guitar parts flailing. You’ve got Ty Segall’s hands-off and purposefully cruddy production to thank for that, Laena Geronimo’s angelically scuzzy vocal (as previously heard in Raw Geronimo and The Like) and the band’s supercharged choruses leading things elsewhere into passages of pure 90s flannel worship. Harnessing that power, the uncustomarily slow “Small Talk” is neither girly, nor manic and Geronimo’s got a irresistible flow to her lyrics, stepping up time and again when you think she’s nowhere left to go, a phat fuzz tone bolstering the track’s careful guitar chimes.
It’s a retro sound all in, but one made current with unusual blends. You’ve heard all Feels’ constituent parts a million times, the whole shredded here into confetti by sharp solos, and it plays like all your favourite college bands played simultaneously from memory alone. “Slippin’”, though, keeps it contemporary with lashings of reverb and a weird warping of the tape. The classic rock riffs in “Tell Me” warm up into a perfect storm of disorientating psychedelic fuzz and shoegazing feedback. Similarly noisy, the ponderous bass repeats in strong closer “Running’s Fun” are decorated by blown-out cones. Then there’s a couple of throwaway punk thrashers, tin-pot pogo rubbing shoulders with bratty skate tempos. Geronimo even says “cowabunga” during one of them. Wonder what the emoji is for that sentiment?
Best track: “Small Talk”
~Feels is out now on Castle Face.~