Time For A Witness (studio album) by The Feelies

From Repo 01/18/2018 16:10

'91:7 Lost in the Wake
aka The New Sound Became The Old Sound When It Still Should Have Been New

With all the hoopla surrounding all the new bands and sounds coming out in 1991, it was easy to overlook the old reliable - The Feelies. One of THE bands that started the whole indie sound to begin with! The Feelies were never less than perfect on their first three seminal records and this - their swan song (until their reunion) - was to be to be no different.

This is the album where the Feelies finally set their tazers (& guitars) to kill and went full-on garage rock. The sound is tough and raw. Gone completely is the nerdy, anxious & insecure vibe that made their debut such a touchstone for the entire indie scene back in 1978. In its place is a toughness. A street smart grittiness.They were no longer green under the ears college freshman. They were grizzled, we’ve-seen-it-all vets. And they had come to chew bubble gum and kick ass and - you’ve guess it - they were all out of bubblegum.

This album is a veritable celebration of all the alleys and dimly lit street corners of lower manhattan back in the 80s. It’s quintessential NYC underground through and through. The shadows of the Twin Towers of NYC rock - The Velvet Underground & Television - loom large over this nugget of indie guitar mayhem. It’s like they had been binging on nothing but Television’s Marquee Moon and The Dream Syndicate’s The Days of Wine and Roses for months. Cooped up in some cramped tour van. Just itching to get out, stretch, and just rock. But, a Feelies album is always far more than its influences. And on this they spray paint the walls with heady stew of garage rock and (what would soon be labeled) Alt Country. “Time For a Witness” captures them in full bar band fervor as if they were covering garage rock gods The Them themselves. “Sooner or Later” is like 70s Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers on speed. And, The Feelies put the exclamation point on this indie guitar whip cream sundae with the totally apropos cover of The Stooges’ ‘Real Cool Time.” And yes.

Yes it was.

Grade: A-. This is a prefect morsel of rough n’ ready indie rock as only NYC (okay, Haledon, NJ - same difference, trust me. Go ask Florence!) can deliver. I suppose it’s not one of the watershed or essential albums of the year. But it may just be its best distillation of indie rock in this already stacked year. Yet another brilliant Feelies album although it’s greatness takes a little longer to unearth and requires a few more spins to sink in. It’s really a perfect nugget of indie rock with sublime energy dipping its toes in garage rock with just a smidgen of rough & raw country twang thrown in there. This is the sort of sound I only wish REM had kept exploring. But I suppose Michael Stipe & his boys always had bigger dreams than just cranking out solid indie jangle rock albums to be played in my car on constant rotation. lol.

Highly Recommended!