Oh it’s a fine album. It could be playing on the radio and I wouldn’t change the station. But what does it take to make a stellar album in the current climate of reinventing pop music? Feral Children? are certainly in good company to accomplish such a task, the album produced by Scott Colburn (producer of Feels?, Strawberry Jam?, Neon Bible?, the Sun City Girls? from 1993-2007, and a ton of other stuff). And their recent studies deserve an A for effort; yet Feral Children? seem to know too well the necessary mechanics, as every appropriate nuance heard on every “indie gem” that Grizzly Bear already sharpened, becomes a predictable structure.

Colburn’s experience and studio wizardry absolutely elevates the tunes. On “Group Home,” “On a Frozen Beach,” and “Inside the Night,” with its tap-tap rhythms and hazy atmospheres, the retention of too much Animal Collective residue reveals some redeeming value, and “Woodland Mutts” and “Rivers of Forever” conveys such introspection the emotional scars almost appear on the listener via contagion.

Then, suddenly, there’s a secret love of grunge that explodes on the last track “Enchanted Parkway,” a song that has almost nothing in common with others. Unfastening the blanket of seriousness that spreads across the others in favor of a back-beat with a spine, and they actually sound like they’re having fun, cutting loose, and not so wounded.

buy the record here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00307Q8VA/190-0702724-4383322?ie=UTF8&tag=sr0d-20