BLOOD FEATHERS
Goodness Gracious
(Philebrity)
Philly-based six-piece the Blood Feathers — featuring the dual lead vocal dream-team of Ben Dickey and Drew Mills — strikes again and more often than not catches the proverbial lightning in a bottle. A bottle of moonshine, to be exact. Released earlier this month, the Philebrity label rockers’ second full length, Goodness Gracious, is a mid winter pick-me-up that arrives not a moment too soon. Kicking things off with a fuzzy throwback to the Exiles-era Stones, Dickey and Mills belt out catchy harmonies atop buzzing guitars that nicely showcases the band’s classic-rock chops and considerable vocal charms. Track two, “Don’t Know You At All,” is quasi psych-rock, sorta like Amazing Baby meets Devendra, a happy medium between the familiar and the bizarre. Amidst sultry croonage and sixties girl group backbeats, Dickey and Mills pose the Who’s eternal question — who the fuck are you? — over and over again atop the galloping, Strokes-ian outro. “Your Advice” sounds like a great lost track from the Byrds’ Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. Swoon-worthy lines like “Who do we think we are / who do we hope to be” are ready-made aspirational mantras floating by on breathy “ahhs.” The Velvets-y shuffle of “Great God Almighty” asks “Do you still care?” If you have a pulse, the answer is most assuredly ‘yes.’ Here as elsewhere, the Blood Feathers’ best trick is dusting off cliched catchphrases to reveal the emotional potency that still lurks beneath such shopworn vernacular. Add in some Memphis horns and a muffled laugh and you’ve got a catchy number full of dead weather zeitgeist and this-you-gotta-hear blog-ability. Then there’s the Bo Diddley stomp of “King Cotton & Little Star” followed by “Money Never Spent”, which kicks off slow and jangly only to morph into seductive low-fi psych nugget, one part gospel, one part glam. Gorgeous stuff. “Caterpillar,” opens with a heavy handed blitz of snare as the lyrics reassure a lover or friend that “its okay.” A befitting mood shift after the nearly somber “Money Never Spent,” “Caterpillar” is the perfect selection for a “Cheer Up” mix tape. The album’s closing track, “Kinger & The Revival,” see-saws between shimmering tambourine and breathy “oohs” while the lead vocals pack all the snarly nuance of early Lou Reed hitting you with a flower. Around my house, at least, there will be Blood. — DIANCA POTTS