A trio of kids comprising two boys and one girl hailing from Rotterdam, Feverdream come across all early Fugazi, all present Q and not U and they chuck in a bit of Laeto, Oswega and Karate in along the way. They’ve got the staccato guitars, the intricate drums and off-kilter rhythms and the telecasters. Despite some frankly scary artwork this bunch are rather good.
Kicking off with the almost Stapleton indie rock of “60 seconds” (imagine my disappointment as it clocked in at 2 minutes 53 seconds) and then moving through the slow build-up song “The story of Joanna”, the jarring technical “Tech-no-logical”, on passed the inevitable, but bluntly stunning, 1 minute song “This Big” and out into some awkwardly political but intriguing almost jetplane landing-esque mantra followed by closer “Future Directions”: all breaking down instruments, rhythms falling all over each other.. Despite some uncomfortable lyrical manoeuvres Feverdream are quite capable of hitting the heights which they do on several occasions. They’re at their best when using both boy and girl vocalists and sound like a difficult, angular sibling to Seafood, all big, choppy riffs and tender breakdowns. It’s never quite the same and yet strangely never quite unique.
With the punk/indie genre tripping along quietly to itself bands like Feverdream will always have an audience, but despite their merits there are better bands and better records. Perhaps “Future Directions” main problem is summed up best by its title; Feverdream hint at bigger things but can’t quite get there, now on album three one would hope they’d stop being promising, it’s time to think about the present.
Steve