Consumer Guide Album

The Feelies: Time for a Witness [A&M, 1991]
Though it had precedents in such influences as Brian Eno, Steve Reich, and The Velvet Underground, we know why the rippling quietude of 1986's electro-pastoral The Good Earth got Peter Buck accused of taking the city out of the boys. So when Bill Million describes this de facto will and testament as "taking several giant steps backwards," say amen. The sere minimalism of Crazy Rhythms was always misleading. Only here, on a harder, louder, riffier, humanisticker studio expansion of their original concept, do they capture the exhilaration of the legendary shows they used to mount on national holidays--the one on Flag Day came complete with star-spangled banner. Once again they imbue oddball suburban nerdiness with spare downtown cool. Once again they rock out while shedding their grace on thee. A