The Feeling: 'Without You'

Released on Monday, Apr 21 2008

Published Tuesday, Apr 1 2008, 17:41 BST | By Alex Fletcher | 7 comments

The Feeling seem to revel in antagonising music critics who find their brand of '70s pop revivalism a right pain in the rear. Rather than "going nu-rave", roping in Mark Ronson or pretending to be the Arctic Monkeys, Dan Gillespie Sells and co. came out with their soft rock guns blazing on sophomore album Join With Us. It's a valiant enough purpose in principle, but in practice, well, it's pretty irritating.

New single 'Without You' finds Gillespie Sell reminiscing about "London town" over a wimpy, meandering melody and crooning sickly, cheesy lyrics about some mysteriously absent lover - fingers crossed the poor sod won't have to hear this in person! The lack of irony within The Feeling's sugary pop is refreshing and honorable, but too often the results are like this: unpalatable, dull dross.

> Click here for our review of The Feeling's Join With Us album

More: The Feeling, Music

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JP, London, on April 18th, 2008
Limp

Nikki, Suffolk, on April 17th, 2008
I quite frankly don't know what you mean by "sickly, cheesy" lyrics, I think they're some of the most beautiful lyrics I've ever heard! This review just goes to show what's happening to music. Sure, I don't expect everyone to like it, but you should understand how good the song actually is.

Amy, on April 15th, 2008
B******s! You don't know what your talking about! One of my favourite Feeling songs, and Dan sounds fantastic on it.

Andy, UK, on April 10th, 2008
Good review, very delicately stated how bad this song is. I'm tired of this soppy crap getting played. More men would buy music if there were some real rockers out there, I think the girlie boy's wrote about missing their mommies!

Caroline, Surrey, on April 8th, 2008
Don't get me wrong, The Feeling are one of my favourite bands-I love them! But I don't think this track is strong enough to be released as a single, exspecially when there are so many amazing tracks on their new album such as 'wont go away' 'join with us' and 'loneliness' to name but a few...the feeling are at thair best when they produce catchy sing-along tunes :)

Alex, Gloucester, on April 7th, 2008
Fletcher obviously doesn't like Pop music (see some of his other reviews) - so why on earth is he reviewing it??? The Feeling have been extremely successful producing there own music so they don't need Mark Ronson, and why on earth would they want to "Pretend to be The Artic Monkeys"??? That's the daftest thing I've read today, it's suggesting oranges be a bit more like potatoes. This has a great wistful tune to it, and just plays along nicely. See these guys live too. They rock. Seriously.

mark, surrey, on April 2nd, 2008
Review is rubbish, neglects to mention that the song was written whilst the band where touring in Virginia when the Virginia Tech shootings happened. Lyrics reflect this, they aren't sickly or cheesy. Lush orchestration and very heartfelt tune, hope it does well.