Ask a Feeder fan if they can pinpoint the moment the band went from one of the UK's most prosperous and consistently entertaining bands to another casualty the old age foe called Father Time and you're liable to get one of three answers. Joe public will ask you not ask them about the fetish over combining their partner's spiralling diabetes and obsession with combining gorging hot dogs and doggy style. You then give them several "famous" songs and immediately, they wonder "What ever did happen to the band that did Buck Rogers?"
The logical fan will say they blame the midpoint of Pushing the Senses; when the band's attempt at capturing Coldplay, Snow Patrol and Xenu forbid Take That's audience with melodic and harmless pop-rock from their previously well established NME Rock/early nineties grunge routes didn't simply not work, but demonstrated every shortcoming the band managed to patch over with their previous four very good/excellent albums.
Then there's the cult follower who can't believe you would insinuate the band is anything other than the bestest, most greatest thing in the whole world and that you must be a total microscopic flaccid dick for thinking anything other, before they and the surprisingly quick mob appear with pitchforks and torches to vivisect you with immediate intent.
Oddly; Feeder did make progress with Silent Cry which I rank as their second best work. Their follow-up to that and up until now, last album; Renegades, came off as a desperate attempt to recapture the old days of thirteen years past, but the songs lacked punch, it was very generic and worst of all; they had done it much better over a decade before.
So where does Generation Freakshow stand in all of this I hear you ask? On the plus side; like all Feeder records, there are stand-out tracks. Sunrise; perfectly placed at the middle of the album, sounds like all the good-points of Pushing the Senses and even Comfort in Sound. It's anthemic with a catchy chorus, decent vocals and a nice drum solo for the final minute.
In that same theme; the Jon Lee tribute Hey Johnny; whilst a bit heavy handed, is a nice little number that combines the obvious bewilderment to the drummer's suicide with an introspective look at how friends and family wish they could have helped him. Again, it has some nice distorted vocal harmonies and it's on the fine and unpredictable line of melancholy rock, but it doesn't fall on the side of whinny.
Lead single Borders is your by the numbers Feeder. It's got the catchy chorus, it's got the harmonious vocals, a decent bridge. It's nothing new but it's the most accessible track on the record. The album's closer Children of the Sun works, not only as an album closer, but a unique look at the possible end of the road. Yes, it does bare more than a slight resemblance to Champagne Supernova, but it does give the album an appropriate end.
As a throwback to the old days of yonder and again the same mold as Renegades, the title track Generation Freakshow finally sees two decades catch up with the band and offers a despairing look at the youth of today, with the backdrop of hard rock. It's short, sweet but somewhat out of place on the record. It's the same story for Headstrong, which captures the youthful energy with hints of the mindless fun of Buck Rogers; a lot of fun but weirdly out of place.
After giving the album several proverbial spins, the biggest problem I have with Generation Freakshow is, as an album, it doesn't work well together. Individually, there's some semi-decent numbers on here but, the main problem being, as a collective piece, it falls in the trap of being a simply being twelve songs thrown together in the best track listing possible.
There's no real on-going theme throughout the album, but rather, there's several. Yes, Children of the Sun works well to round off the album, but it would have worked well to round off Comfort in Sound, Pushing the Senses or even Yesterday Went Too Soon. It all sounds very jumbled and very confused, but maybe that's the point.
What isn't the point however, is, in all honesty, Generation Freakshow is an collection of songs that have been done before and ultimately, done better. Even if the album worked well as, you know, an album, it's tracks bare more than a striking resemblance to those on Yesterday Went Too Soon. With Yesterday... though, there was a sense of progression, of a trio finding their feet in an unpredictable world that suddenly opened up to them, where in the confusing shuffle of things, they regressed back to previous mundane but ultimately happy memories of an easier time.
With Generation Freakshow however, it's a collection of fragmented ideas that are constantly lost in the forever expanding music landfill. You do feel the disdain of what the future holds in something like the title track or the sense of loss in Children of the Sun's acoustic end/hidden track, but the rest have the same problem as Renegades had collectively; the album tries to recapture the spirit of the past but misses the point they made in the first place.
All in all; whilst there's some decent stand-alone tracks, Generation Freakshow isn't a return to form, but unfortunately, a call to remember the good times, which for Feeder, seem so far away.
6/10
H
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