Here Before

Feelies | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 12, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2011
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: BAR NONE ENT
• ASIN: B004O8E1R2
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,207 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Fans of ancestral indie rock, get excited. --Pitchfork

...the band s delicate footprints are still heavily visible on so much contemporary indie rock. --Stereogum

Product Description

After 19 years, The Feelies are back with Here Before, an album of new original material. Alongside founding members Glenn Mercer and Bill Million is The Feelies line up first featured on 1986's The Good Earth: Brenda Sauter, Stanley Demeski and Dave Weckerman. Here Before touches on different styles from the Feelies' long history while adding new musical ideas to the mix. Electric and acoustic guitars melt together in archetypal Feelies fashion on "Nobody Knows", elsewhere there are slabs of driving garage rock like "When You Know" and the down-tempo "Bluer Skies," and harmonically rich "Later On."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars WELL WORTH THE WAIT April 12, 2011

By S. Rapacki

Format:Audio CD

When the Good Earth finally came out many years after Crazy Rhythms, many listeners were disappointed that the new album didn't duplicate the often manic pace of their debut. The Good Earth was initially panned because it wasn't Crazy Rhythms 2, but eventually enough listeners championed its subtler charms to enshrine it pretty damn high in the Feelies canon. Here Before is likely to receive the same treatment from a lot of narrow minded reviewers, but please don't believe the anti-hype: if you thought the first four Feelies albums were great, you will not be disappointed the slightest in their fifth recording. The songs are great, the guitars all have that legendary Feelies 'feel'. There is a reason people put this band on a pedestal like the Velvet Underground, and this record doesn't nothing to tarnish the legend.

To Feelies noobs out there: if you are a fan of any of the folk-based indie rock out there today, you owe it to your ears to listen to the band that was here long before such music was fashionable. Normally when suggesting entry points to an older band I'd point to one of their classic recordings, but Here Before is the rare case of reunion recordings that stand on equal footing with a band's classics. They also, for the record, continue to kick several kinds of ass live!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Here Before": Sublime In Its Simplicity April 13, 2011

By John W. Evans

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you like the rest of The Feelies' recorded output, I have no doubts that you will like "Here Before". While fans are often leery of reunion albums, there is nothing to worry about here... this is a great recording!

While there is really nothing new here, for my tastes that is what makes "Here Before" a great Feelies album. It has the same driving rhythms and percussion as those albums that preceded it, the same kinds of songs they have done in the past in regard to style and structure, and the same kind of rock-and-roll-in-the-living-room vibe that makes them such a comfortable band to spend time with. The term "organic" is somewhat overused when referring to how members of a band connect, but the members of this band were meant to play music together. You will hear that organic sense of connectedness when you hear this album.

The only criticism I have of "Here Before" is that Glenn Mercer's voice is buried in the mix from time to time. But that's about it, as this album is the equal of any of their others. Mercer and Bill Million play their usual symbiotic rhythm guitars with Mercer taking an occasional solo; Brenda Sauter's bass playing lends a sense of melody to the rhythm guitar passages; and she, along with drummers Stanley Demeski and Dave Weckerman, continue to propel the band along in fine fashion.

Many acts have a "bathroom break" song, that is, one or two songs where you would be willing to leave the show for a few minutes. "Here Before" is a studio album, but if The Feelies were to perform it live, I would not want to miss a second of any of these tracks.

Standout songs for me are the flat-out rockers, like the album opener "Nobody Knows" and particularly the sixth track, "Way Down". But the quieter tracks are good too; if you like the rhythm-guitar interplay of Mercer and Million, you might just love "Morning Comes"! Heck, it's all good!

Feelies fans can rejoice, because this is simply a great album! It is sublime in its simplicity. Get this album, turn it up loud, and let yourself get lost in it. It is well worth the time!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Same as they ever were --- absolutely great April 20, 2011

By Jesse Kornbluth TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Audio CD

Devices off. Full attention, please. We have come to pay homage to The Feelies.

It's safe to say very few of you know them. Well, that's almost by design. This band formed in suburban New Jersey in 1976. In the `80s, they released --- very quietly --- four records, each causing modest swooning. By 1988, when they put out "Only Life," savvy critics were calling them "the best underrated band in America."

And then they went on hiatus.

For 19 years.

Now, with "Here Before," they're back.

Already certain ideas are occurring to you. Those titles --- could they be more laconic, more ironic? That subterranean status --- could it have been what the band wanted? Detached excellence --- could that have been their point?

These are the opening lines of the new CD, from a song called --- two words again --- "Nobody Knows."

Is it too late
to do it again?
Or should we wait
another ten?

To pose that question is delicious arrogance, isn't it? But self-assurance is a given in Feelieland. These are supremely confident nerds of the art school breed: mostly tall, skinny, bespectacled, with a female bass player for variety. Stage presence? Casual. In the extreme. At one of their rare --- thus: historic --- concerts, when they crank the tempo and build to something like a rave, they have been known to jerk around, sometimes bouncing, even jumping. Smiles? Banter? Never happened.

So it's really all about the music, isn't it? Here it gets thorny, because words turn into salad here. The Feelies influenced R.E.M. and were influenced by Lou Reed, but they're far more subtle and sophisticated than either. And even that's not quite accurate, because their music seems so simple --- it's built on three guitars. There are two drummers, but it's not as if they're loud. What, then, is the big deal?

The big deal is punk meets J.J. Cale meets The Byrds meets the Thirteen Floor Elevators meets Indian raga meets surf music meets the Velvet Underground. Country western dance band. Movie soundtrack rock and roll....when the general mood of the movie is urban and cool and observant, smart without being ambitious

But let me stop reaching. Just listen.....