The Feeling of Love – “Dissolve Me” – Kill Shaman

More proof that, even if just for a moment, Metz France was a creative powerhouse. The Feeling of Love were one of the more easily digestible of what was an otherwise abrasive and noisy scene. Their records before this LP dabbled in psych while still being very much rooted in nu-garage. I thought that the “School Yeah” single on Sweet Rot was considerably better than the other singles, and while I liked the long player “OK Judge Revival”, I was never really sold on this band. However, I was appreciative that the French weirdos were able to master more than just the in-your-face-noise of AH Kraken and The Anals. This LP is a huge step forward, and is much more my bag than their other full length on Kill Shaman.
The record starts out as almost Suicide influenced rock-n-roll album. Once the guitars come in, and the vocal effects subside a little bit, The Feeling of Love’s ability to write actual songs becomes much more apparent. There are certainly more than one examples where this album wanders into the more garage territory that their other releases have fallen into, but where it really shines is when they’re pushing into straight psych traps while still applying garage principals of short and simple. The times when their old ways pay off are when they are straight up playing A-Frames or Intelligence songs. It’s kind of mind blowing when your ears wake up and you realize how much of a tribute they’re paying at a couple points.
This record brings you back to it over and over because of how simple it is, but also because the pay off for listening to the psyched out parts is great. My only complaint is that there are a few songs that are just completely forgettable, but are so close to being great that all they really needed was someone to come in and write a hook or turn down the keyboard in the mix. Definitely a solid genre record and well worth the price if you are into any of the other French bands. I could picture 2007 Black Lips and 1998 Brian Jonestown Massacre fans that have moved on being really into this.