The Feather Side - Eternal Serenade 11 November 2009
The Feather Side is an indie emo-rock band that started out in Fukuoka. But there are eighty-four billion other emo-rock groups on the planet. What helps differentiate the Feather Side, and what makes Eternal Serenade a particularly great album, is the variety in their melodies, often backed by powerful drum beats from Takamitsu Hiruma and front-man Kyouhei Dou’s crystalline vocals. He uses English exclusively throughout the album, with enunciation clear enough that most people would never guess the band is Japanese if they didn’t already know. The Feather Side has a tendency to draw out the length of their songs though; Eternal Serenade has only twelve songs but lasts a full eighty-two minutes, including an awesome instrumental closing track that accounts for nearly fifteen minutes by itself. But the band uses these lengthy songs to explore melodic transitions instead of simply repeating the same measures over and over, which goes a long way towards making Eternal Serenade the great album that it is.