Independent

Release Date: November 2007

Web site: www.thefervor.com

The Fervor - Bleeder
Matthew Ralph

Back in the mid-‘90s when I was mooching leftovers at school to buy CDs and go to shows with my lunch money, a good chunk of that money was being forked over for the female-fronted indie-rock of the time – Velocity Girl, Helium, Mazzy Star, Belly, Lush, etc. etc.

A decade later, those bands are all long gone and I can’t really rattle off a list of female-fronted indie-rock bands I’m into now. Female vocalists in bands and female singer/songwriters, yes. But none of these artists are fronting bands in the mid-‘90s sense (Rilo Kiley? Rainer Maria? No thanks).

That said, my first encounter with Louisville’s The Fervor on a local radio station brought me back to the aforementioned period of female-fronted dominance. The song --“Brushfire”-- has a lot of the elements that first attracted me to those bands: a catchy melody, edgy guitar riffs and a commanding vocal presence.

As it does in a song that’s received repeated airtime locally, singer Natalie Felker’s voice commands attention throughout much of the band’s full-length debut “Bleeder” (a title that brings to a mid-‘90s female-fronted band and their hit song “Seether”).

Sounding kind of like the female version of Eric Bachmann, the sultry voice of Felker in “Moment of Truth” begins the record with the line, “Sleeping sound in a den of faithless whores/I realized my faith was settled at the foot of those doors.” Later in the song her voice plays the part of the soothing dentist singing, “Don’t worry cuz you won’t feel a thing/Don’t worry cuz you got no feeling,” as a gentle blend of violin, keyboard, guitar feedback and percussion drive the song to its climactic finish.

The three men backing her, including husband Ben Felker, deserve plenty of credit in their own right. Though often taking a subtle passenger seat ride to the steering vocals, the soothing soundscapes and bursts of energy on tracks like “Control It” and “Brushfire” give the songs depth. These elements with the occasional male vocal thrown in (most notably the male-female duo singing lines from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on the closing track “Out Alone”) keep Felker, who performed many of the songs in her living room for friends before forming the band, from falling into the trap of being more of a singer with a band than a singer in a band. Lord knows we already have enough So-and-so and the something acts out there.

The interplay between the vocals and the music isn’t always spot on – “The Void” is a bit too simplistic at times with a nursery rhyme-like piano and matching vocal intro – but it’s the kind of thing that is excusable on a debut release that should hopefully be a sign of better things to come as the band continues to hone their skills as a unit built around a talented vocalist. “Bleeder” isn’t a flawless debut, but it’s one that whether the influences are intentional or not, brings me back to a combination missing from a lot of today’s so-called hit indie-rock acts.

posted [03.31.08]

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