THE DAMAGE IS DONE

The Features
“Kari-Ann”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
Exhibit A, UK album release (2005)

OTHER VERSIONS

The Features
“Exhibit A”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
Exhibit A, album release (2004)

OTHER VERSIONS  

The Features
“The Way It’s Meant To Be”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006

Hearing the echo of the crowd singing the first back at Matt Pelham makes it seem like the band is playing a huge stadium. I love it.

Also, if you have still not seen the band live yet, you are supposed to clap along to this song. It is the first law of Daiglenetics.

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
The Beginning, Universal EP release (2004)
Exhibit A, album release (2004)

OTHER VERSIONS 

The Features
“Circus”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
Exhibit A, album release (2004)

OTHER VERSIONS

The Features
“Leave It All Behind”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006 

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
Exhibit A, album release (2004)
Leave It All Behind, single release (2005)

LINEAGE:
Was “Stick Together” (same first verse)

OTHER VERSIONS 

The Features
“The Beginning (Week One)”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006

Quite one of the coolest things my college ever did was have the Features play in Tucker Theater, the same theater I saw MTSU’s productions of “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “The Music Man” and “Fiddler On The Roof” at.

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
The Beginning, EP release (2001)
The Beginning, Fierce Panda EP release (2003)
The Beginning, Universal EP release (2004)

OTHER VERSIONS

The Features
“I Will Wander”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006

The Features never sounded sassy or sexy and, really, I never thought they needed to. That is until “I Will Wander” debuted at a show at Rhythm & Brews in November of 2005…and people promptly started grinding and making out to it. The disco beat is on full blast here and, yes, Rollum uses a cow bell. The guitar is so silkily sinister, I love the compressed riffage during the chorus. The keyboards add a sense of 70s Rod Stewart slyness and bass line just tops it all off with even more grooviness. I’m now realizing that this description makes the song seem like a pastiche of 70s/80s groove rock, but man it is so much more. The Features own this sound, attitude and falsetto. Plus any song that has Pelham sing a line like “write you a letter that isn’t fit to read” is aces in my book.

“I Will Wander” debuted during the last couple days of 2005 and would enjoy a healthy, but brief, run as a regular at Features shows for the next couple months before the band’s hiatus in 2006. The song survived that and underwent a minor reworking for the band’s 2006 Contrast EP. The song was played on the band’s tour in 2007 but I haven’t heard of it being played recently.

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
Contrast, EP release (2006)

For the week leading up to the release of the Features’ new album, Some Kind of Salvation, I will be posting an older version of some of the songs from the album. This is part 6 of Some Kind of Week.

The Features
“Concrete”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006

This song has always struck me as somewhat spooky, and I love it all the more for that. Rollum steadily pounds away at his drums like an automaton, Roger’s bass trudges alongside it and Parrish’s keys hover around the verses like a spectre. The song creates a very strong mental image and Matt Pelham’s opposite-driven lyrics just add a helping of confusion on top of the eerieness. It’s a really fascinating song and it quickly became one of my favorites back around the time of this recording. The version that appears on Some Kind of Salvation is comprised almost solely of electronic beats, keyboards and distorted-sounding guitars.

“Concrete” debuted on November 12th, 2005 at Wall Street in Murfreesboro. The song was then played at most every Features show after that until the spring of 2006. The song is rarely played live today, but it did make it to the band’s sophomore album.

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
Some Kind of Salvation, album release (2008)

For the week leading up to the release of the Features’ new album, Some Kind of Salvation, I will be posting an older version of some of the songs from the album. This is part 1 of Some Kind of Week.

The Features
“The Drawing Board”
Live @ Tucker Theater
January 20th, 2006

This punchy song immediately became a fan-favorite and show highlight after its debut. The buildup during the verses to the explosive shouting in the chorus is brilliantly paced, with every instrument hitting in sync on the beat, beating like an overworked heart. Then when that chorus, all unified shouting and screaming, erupts…it’s unlike most anything in a Features song. Seeing the entire band yell “we just meet back here and do it again” for the first time blew everyone away, as it was extremely rare for all four of them to sing on a song.

“The Drawing Board” had a very short life from its debut in December 2005 to the band’s hiatus in Spring 2006. During that brief time, the song managed to be played at nearly every Features show and even made it to the Elite 8 during the message board’s annual March Madness poll. The song was demoed in early 2006 with Matt Mahaffey and placed on the band’s MySpace page. In 2008, the song found a place as the big and brassy second track on the band’s second album, Some Kind of Salvation. The song remains virtually unchanged, with an added “we just meet back here and do it again” after the first verse.

A VERSION APPEARS ON:
Some Kind of Salvation, album release (2008)