On The Feeling's home page, singer Dan Gillespie Sells vindicates his band's approach to music, stating, "There are no guilty pleasures any more. You're allowed to like Andrew Gold, ELO, Supertramp or 10cc. It's really liberating".

With this off their chests his quintet The Feeling set out to achieve their goal, updating their own guilty pleasures for the summer of 2006. Add this to an obvious songwriting talent, and you have a debut album laden with hooks, quotable vocal snips and a few overindulgences. It will then suddenly dawn on the listener that while the band are unashamedly derivative there's a gap in the market for what they do, to the obvious delight of the UK's commercial radio stations.

Singles Sewn and Fill My Little World are pop nuggets. The former, tinged with a grey melancholy, is made of the softest rock and recalls Supertramp, though here in extended version over elaborates at the end. Meanwhile the upward looking latter is punchier and feels better, in a manner bands like Semisonic used to do in the late 1990s. Both make the transition from the studio to middle of the brain with ease, and refuse to leave once there.

It's clear the band have a soft spot for harmonisation, Jeff Lynne style, of which Never Be Lonely is a prime example. Love It When You Call dips into this, and is possibly the most memorable song on the album, Sells singing, "what's the complication, it's only conversation".

Armed with these formidable pop weapons, The Feeling also put plenty of emotion into their songs. The tender Rosé is a case in point, Sells exploring his feminine side over a single piano line. The song gradually builds but doesn't overdo it, impressively reigning in at the end. This isn't always the case, and chief culprit Same Old Stuff yields to a hugely inflated guitar solo, the song lost in the meantime.

You'll gather from this that The Feeling aren't a band for macho men who like to rock. But there's something appealing about their brand of music with its light, sunny harmonies and direct choruses. It's music that adheres to the basic principles of pop, and looks likely to be rewarded for doing so with a high place in the charts this summer.

share:  Facebook | Digg | del.icio.us | more

Mercury Prize 2009 nominees