The Features have been hailed as contemporaries of Kings of Leon, a distressing prognosis that suggests this Tennessee outfit may be all beard and no bite.
Kicking off in a ferociously derivative swamp-rock squall, Exhibit A initially goes out of its way to confirm your misgivings. Couched in zinging guitars that evoke a backwoods ZZ Top and melodies which could have been cadged from a Nashville pawnshop, the record comes on like the work of efficient, but disengaged , forgers.
Perhaps The Features, whose semi-prominence is owed to a Kings Of Leon support slot last year, feel obliged to return the favour through the only means at their disposal: by offering up a misshapen hillbilly-metal pastiche. The gambit seems cheap, as though the group considers such shtick beneath them.
It gets better though. Sloughing off their influences (and their phony sideburns), The Features begin to channel their inner pop demons. From the morass of third hand Americana, there abruptly arise pristine shards of indie-rock, as slick as a salesman’s patter.
On 'Blow It Out' vocalist Matt Pelham discovers a latent vulnerability in the guise of a bruised choirboy croon. Elsewhere 'Situation Gone Bad' peddles flab-free new-wave and 'Harder To Ignore' transmits a nagging groove. A closing highlight is 'Circus', a feral pile-up of punk riffs and hammond-driven psychedelia . The tribute band, it is apparent, has quit the premises.