After 10 albums, 26 Top 40 singles and two million UK album sales, Feeder’s Grant Nicholas could be forgiven for taking his foot off the (distortion) pedal and venturing down the acoustic avenues explored on his 2014 solo record Yorktown Heights.
His band’s 11th album is anything but laid back, however. Written and recorded remotely during the darkest days of lockdown, it’s shot through with a paranoiac sense of urgency.
‘What have we become?’, he sighs in a scorching Wall Of Silence, while Decompress is a blistering blast of pop-metal.
Packed with musical curve balls – a gnarly title track slaloms from thrash dirge to stadium anthem – the album’s redemptive mode is summed up by The Healing, a Britpop-meets-grunge banger that serves as a reminder that Feeder are still at their peak.
