Buried Feather – Buried Feather

Burned Feather, hailing from Australia, wish to come off as a kaleidoscopic psychedelic progressive rock band suitable for laidback couch-bound emancipation, creating lysergic bliss, but they don’t.

From all of their releases I’ve managed to save but two songs, both from this outing, featuring cover art that is entirely reminiscent of the Supertramp album Crime of the Century, “Sink to the Bottom” and “Maybe” … with both of these numbers actually being colourful ethereal hypnotic psychedelic daydreams worthy of your consideration.

On the whole this album, along with their others, reveals music that comes off as being entirely sophomoric, with many fans claiming that they’re flashing back images of vintage stoner-rock from the 70’s, though methinks that no one making such a statement was there then, and is only making an offhanded connection as a descriptor. Yes, the band does have some good rhythms, some fuzzy guitars, and on the whole the drowsy vocals are enchanting, attempting to instill an aura of mellowness, with the fault being that Burned Feather haven’t learned to connect all of those dots, allowing what they do best to merge and morph into something splendid; as they did on the two afore mentioned tracks.

I would suggest that all of the band’s praise is based entirely on live performances, where I imagine they feel slightly more free to allow their music to wander in a bit more of an atmospheric nature, calling to mind groups such as Spacemen 3 or Dead Meadow, yet that attitude is not revealed on record, where their druggy rave-ups, locked in swirling and at times explosive guitars, spurred on by synth driven backgrounds, leaves the whole effort and effect to come off as if one thing is piled on top of another for affect only and without the purpose of a conceptual wholeness, one that’s neither mesmerizing nor filled with bliss.

Review by Jenell Kesler