The Feeling - Join With Us

By Andrew Hendry

2 years after their debut release, The Feeling are back to swim the dangerous waters of pop music and delight fans with a further instalment of tales of love and heartache.

‘Join With Us’ starts on a high, and the latest single ‘I Thought It Was Over’, with its rocking guitar rifts and catchy lyrics, provides a great start to the album. ‘Without You’ is a clever little track expressing love for either an unobtainable woman, or the paved streets of London.

What appears to be a promising release quickly falls into an abyss of obscurity. The band’s attempt to establish a new sound leaves a number of songs sounding quite Disney-like and one of the lad’s children singing on the outro of ‘I Did It For Everyone’ is just plain scary. ‘Join With Us’ attempts to provide listeners with upbeat, stadium tracks, but sadly delivers a number of songs which sound patronising, and at times, rather boring.

This said, the band still performs well throughout and fans will surely fall in love with the lads’ second release. It’s a shame that with the exception of ‘I Thought It Was Over’ and ‘Won’t Go Away’, the album lacks any real pop anthems, which its predecessor provided by the barrel. In an era in which bands are experimenting with different sounds and throwing away the rulebook, perhaps The Feeling shouldn’t have played safe and stuck so closely to the pop genre.