The Feelies - In Between album review

Like a fine wine, the New Jersey indie-rock pioneers get better with age

The Feelies In Between cover art

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

Few bands can claim a career-best album 40 years down the line, but The Feelies are one of them. Granted, this is only their sixth album, but with a focus on quality rather than quantity it should come as no surprise that their sound – very much informed by the Velvet Underground’s third album – has left its indelible mark, from R.E.M.’s earliest efforts through to modern-day practitioners such as Ultimate Painting.

The Feelies’ grip of melody remains very much in place throughout, as do their love of jangling intertwining guitars and a strict sense of rhythm. And although this is an album that is obviously aware of mortality (see Stay The Course and Pass The Time), it’s less about filling time as it is about using it wisely. Indeed as evidenced by the fuzzy and trance-like reprise of In Between, The Feelies can make a little go a long way.

Julian Marszalek

Julian Marszalek is the former Reviews Editor of The Blues Magazine. He has written about music for Music365, Yahoo! Music, The Quietus, The Guardian, NME and Shindig! among many others. As the Deputy Online News Editor at Xfm he revealed exclusively that Nick Cave’s second novel was on the way. During his two-decade career, he’s interviewed the likes of Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Ozzy Osbourne, and has been ranted at by John Lydon. He’s also in the select group of music journalists to have actually got on with Lou Reed. Marszalek taught music journalism at Middlesex University and co-ran the genre-fluid Stow Festival in Walthamstow for six years.