The problem with making timeless albums is that when you follow them with pretty good ones, they’re given short shrift. The Feelies, a combo from Haledon, N.J., led by pseudonymous guitarists Glenn Mercer and Bill Millions, hit it out of the park with 1980’s Crazy Rhythms and 1986’s The Good Earth. Those records represent the anxious adolescence and resplendent maturity of a band that learned all the right lessons from the Velvet Underground, Brian Eno and a substratum of well-digested classic-rock influences, and applied them to songs that expressed the angst and joy of life in suburban New Jersey.
On Only Life (1988) and Time For A Witness (1991), the Feelies tried to play the major-label game. The group toured gamely in support of them, which proved nearly fatal for an ensemble that had made its groundbreaking work on weekends and holidays. But musically, the Feelies handled the majors better than most.
Only Life has biggish drums and pushes Mercer way in front of the group’s frenetic strumming, but his telegraphic lyrics and terse leads actually benefit from the spotlight treatment. The songs grapple with apprehension and the longing for comfort, which the music delivers in the form of indelible hooks and transcendent rave-ups. Time For A Witness is immaculately recorded but tougher and truer to the group’s live sound. Mercer’s voice pokes out holes in a wall of interlocking guitars and drums, singing songs that express skepticism regarding the status quo and a longing for home that the band ultimately had to break up to find.
—Bill Meyer
