The Third Eye

U.K.-based The Fierce & The Dead are back, and they bring news. It’s not the gospel – or good news, as your Jesus-loving mom would say – but News From The Invisible World, a new full-length album due on July 28, 2023. The eight-song, 42-minute album marks the band’s first release featuring vocals from bassist Kevin Feazy.

This British rock band was formed in 2010, and over these 13 years, they’ve built a reputation as one of the most innovative rock bands in the U.K., with a loyal fanbase and critical acclaim for their previous releases. I had not heard of them before they sent me an email, but that shows two things: first, I really don’t know that much, and second, there’s such an enormous array of great bands and musicians out there today that it’s impossible to know them all.

About News From The Invisible World

The Fierce & The Dead consists of Kevin Feazey (lead vocals/bass), Matt Stevens (guitar/keys), Steve Cleaton (guitar), and Stuart Marshall (drums). They started as a purely instrumental band, but Feazey has taken on the role of lead vocalist, adding a new dimension to their sound. They describe their music as a fusion of psych rock, old metal records, post-rock, prog rock, broken analog synths, and shoegaze.

News From the Invisible World has been five years in the making, and it’s already gotten rave reviews online, especially from progressive rock sites. The band has played across the U.K., mainland Europe, and the U.S., touring and supporting Hawkwind, Crippled Black Phoenix, and many more.

Guitarist Matt Stevens said this about the new record: “We wanted to make an ambitious record like Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips made in the late 90s, but you can hear lots of influences in there, even the Carcass and Napalm Death records we loved when we were teenagers, Slowdive, and all sorts. We didn’t get to tour the last record as much as we’d like due to my cancer diagnosis and then COVID, and it went bonkers, so hopefully, this one will be somewhat easier.”

News From The Invisible World will be available on CD, vinyl, and digital download on July 28th. Pre-orders are available now from the band’s Bandcamp page. The band launches the album with a live appearance at London’s Black Heart on October 14. They will announce a U.K. headline tour for 2024 shortly. Now, let’s get to the music …

The Songs

The album begins, fittingly, with “The Start,” a relatively short song that feels a bit like an Eighties ballad. The sound, especially the guitars, has a Slowdive feel, and Feazey’s vocals are pleasant. The song’s tension builds gradually as backing vocals kick in before it breaks into an explosion of color and a more rocking sound. Overall, a great way to start the record.

“Shake The Jar” comes next, a much more rocking song from the get-go. The band’s technical prowess is evident, as is the songwriting skill. It’s a progressive-rocker song with many changes in tempo and pace.

“Golden Thread” surprised me with a kick-ass metal guitar riff blasting at the beginning. The previous two songs were on the lighter side of the rock spectrum, but this track brought heaviness. It’s another progressive rocker, as it shifts and changes, slows down, and returns to the killer main riff.

“Photogenic Love” brings out another side of The Fierce & The Dead. It has an almost poppy feel, again like something from the Eighties. I thought the track title was interesting, too – I was unsure what “Photogenic Love” was about, so I checked the lyrics they sent me. The lyrics were a bit cryptic, though, and I couldn’t discern any specific meaning. C’est la vie.

“Wonderful” has a funky bass line and some good synth work. Interestingly, the band mentioned The Flaming Lips in the press release and this felt a bit like a Flaming Lips song. The only difference is that, as usual, there are some heavier guitar sections you wouldn’t necessarily hear in most Flaming Lips tunes. This is also a tune that probably most fits the psychedelic mold.

“What a Time to Be Alive” is another banger off the record with a metal heaviness mixed with flourishes of psychedelia and wonderful synth sounds. It’s a mostly instrumental track, and another one with a title that intrigued me. Indeed, 2023 is a wild time to be alive! I walked away from this song respecting the chops of these musicians and understanding why they succeeded so well as a purely instrumental rock band for so long.

The album closes with “Nostalgia Now,” which clocks in at six minutes, 48 seconds. It’s a great track to close with, a classic pensive, longer song that turns the lights off slowly and somewhat gently. I followed along with the lyrics, and while they were also cryptic, they were beautifully poetic. For example, check out the final verse from the song:

“As it breathes
Now it will always be
No more grief
But without we cannot see
Are we here?
Or are we just everywhere?
Disappear
Into these arms. Into these arms”

I can’t tell you what this means, but it reads like abstract poetry that could have many interpretations. Without going off on too much of a tangent, I also think the topic of nostalgia is super interesting nowadays. It’s a theme we’re seeing politically worldwide where people want to “Make America Great Again” or something along those lines. And with the internet today, we’re inundated with so much imagery from the past in bite-sized clips that the lyrics “Are we here?/Or are we just everywhere?” make a lot of sense to me.

Final Thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed News From The Invisible World by The Fierce & The Dead and recommend you check it out. The album leans more to the progressive rock side than psychedelic, in my opinion, though. The dashes of synthesizer give many tracks a retro feel, and you may be surprised by how hard these guys can rock when they want to. The vocals also impressed me, considering that’s a new addition to their sound.

I’d recommend this album to fans of another U.K.-based band that we covered before called Amplifier. This should be up your alley if you like intricate progressive rock songwriting and music that makes you think. Enjoy!

Support The Fierce & The Dead by finding them on Bandcamp or social media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube).

Parting words: “Really, I don’t like human nature unless all candied over with art.” – Virginia Woolf

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