''Tallulah'' is the tenth studio album by Welsh
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...
band
Feeder, released on 9 August 2019 through
Believe Music
Believe SAS (also known as Believe Music; previously known as Believe Digital) is a global digital music company headquartered in France. Believe has several brands including TuneCore, Nuclear Blast, Naïve, Groove Attack, Play Two and AllPoints. ...
.
The album was a commercial success, charting at number four on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...
, Feeder's first top-five studio album since 2005. The album also debuted at number one on the
UK Independent Albums Chart
The UK Independent Singles Chart and UK Independent Albums Chart are charts of the best-selling independent singles and albums, respectively, in the United Kingdom. Originally published in January 1980, and widely known as the indie chart, the r ...
, their first since 2002 and first under new chart rules introduced in 2009, in which only albums entirely released on a fully independent label and distributor are eligible to chart.
Background
The album is named after the daughter of frontman
Grant Nicholas
Grantley Jonathan Nicholas (born 12 November 1967) is a Welsh musician and the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band Feeder.
In 2014, Nicholas released his debut solo album '' Yorktown Heights.'' In the following year, a released a min ...
's wife's best friend, whom Nicholas describes as "a character". More broadly, the album title is intended to send a "strong message" about "the importance of kids" and how becoming a parent has changed Nicholas's life. The band additionally described the album as a "road trip through
heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
pan-American influences".
The single "Fear of Flying" was written from the perspective of a female rock star, but based on Nicholas's own "experiences of being in a band and what you see when you're hanging out with other bands", and explained it also "touches on being a band in the social media age".
The single "Blue Sky Blue" was originally written by Nicholas with
Liam Gallagher
William John Paul Gallagher (born 21 September 1972) is an English singer and songwriter. He is the lead singer and co-founder of the rock band Oasis (band), Oasis and fronted the rock band Beady Eye from 2010 to 2014, before starting a succes ...
in mind, but by the time he had written it and contacted the publicist both Gallagher and Feeder share, he was informed that Gallagher had already finished his album, ''
Why Me? Why Not.''
Critical reception
Critical response to ''Tallulah'' has been generally positive. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream
music critics
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...
, the album received an
average score of 67, based on 5 reviews, which indicates "generally favourable reviews".
Reviewing the album for ''
Clash'', Susan Horner called ''Tallulah'' "a celebration" of the "key components" in Feeder's material—an "infectious combination of hooks, imaginative lyrics and dark verses", concluding that "it is hard to think of anything more fitting for a 10th album".
Writing for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', Al Horner summarised the album as "a tour of noughties guitar music that time, or at least the zeitgeist, forgot" and "Nicholas and Hirose play
ngto their strengths: unabashedly unfashionable guitar anthems with melodic
MOR flourishes".
Ian Winwood of ''
Kerrang!
''Kerrang!'' is a British music webzine and quarterly magazine that primarily covers rock, punk and heavy metal music. Since 2017, the magazine has been published by Wasted Talent Ltd (the same company that owns electronic music publication ...
'' described Tallulah as an album "busy with songs that fizz with life and the kind of choruses that exist in a glorious, endless summer", declaring it to be "a triumph".
Track listing
Personnel
* Grant Nicholas – vocals, guitars, keyboards, percussion, production, and string arrangements
* Taka Hirose – bass guitar
* Karl Brazil – drums on "Blue Sky Blue", "Fear of Flying", "Tallulah", "Shapes and Sounds", "Guillotine", "Kyoto", "Kite", and "Windmill"
* Geoff Holroyde – drums on "Youth", "Daily Habit", and "Rodeo"
* Tim Roe – production, engineering, string arrangements, additional keyboards on "Tallulah", and mixing for "Lonely Hollow Days"
* Luke Gibbs – assistant engineering
* Chris Sheldon – mixing, except for "Lonely Hollow Days"
* Brian Gardner – mastering
* Rugman – artwork
Charts
References
{{Authority control
2019 albums
Feeder albums