Feeding the Fire

The band is best described as a child nursed at the teat of '90s alternative, taught to play ball by Prog Rock, and spoiled just a little by its cool uncle Heavy Metal.

Another three-songer, Naked to the Invisible Eye is merely a taste of what the band offers, which is pretty cool. The EP kicks off with the sludgy metal intro of "I don't mean to sound queer, but you have a nice ass for a guy." Instantly, the vocals sound reminiscent of Tool- with a sense of humor. And the EP never lets up as it guides listeners through almost 15 minutes of adventurous, multi-faceted rock music.

All three songs on the EP are available for stream and download at http://www.myspace.com/feedingthefire. The band also has a CD release show at Wetlands Dance Hall on May 7, if you're in town.

There's so much good local music around here. Make sure to check out at least some of it.

-Bryan Reed : Arts Desk - Daily Tarheel

March 4, 2010 - Homer Simpson once equated selling pretzels to desperately trying to cram one more salty treat into America’s already bloated snack hole. Hard rock and munchies aren’t exactly apples to apples, but Feeding the Fire does a lot to stand out from a crowded field with DisInfoNation.

Rather than amping up and going for a full-on heavy metal sound, Chapel Hill’s Feeding the Fire achieves a more balanced approach.

“Ms. Brownstone” could almost pass for an Incubus song with vocalist Ken Cannon playing the part of the energetic Brandon Boyd, and “Fishtory” melds that idea with a bit of Pearl Jam and a crisp guitar solo to develop something that merges modern rock accessibility with a penchant for stylistic variation.

One of the album’s real strengths the way it avoids standard rock formulas. Sure, the band works mostly in the same minor keys, but the songs drift from the usual verse-verse-solo technique of more classically minded rock.

“Crash Landing” hits from all angles with power chord riffs that interchange with keyboards as Cannon contrasts the carnage with his smoothly charismatic tones.

Half of the songs run longer than four and a half minutes, but these are the best and most diverse tunes, cramming in an exciting range of sounds. The tempo picks up after the album’s halfway mark, culminating in “The Life, Love and Death of Sucio Sanchez”, a three-part jam session that takes you on a sprawling Mexican adventure.

DisInfoNation’s wide array of sounds is the cornerstone of the album. It’s a journey of a record, one in which the band takes its time getting where they’re going, allowing us to enjoy every twist in the road.

http://www.dailytarheel.com/content/music-review-feeding-fire-1 - The Daily Tarheel by Seth Leonard

March 4, 2010 - Feeding The Fire stands as an oddity in Chapel Hill’s music scene.

In an area dominated by garage rockers and pop outfits, Feeding the Fire’s progressive rock sound is an unlikely match for the Southern part of Heaven.

“It’s lonely,” said bassist Eric Smith.

Picking the opening line-up for its upcoming CD release party at the Local 506 was an understandably daunting task.

Simply put, there isn’t another band in the Triangle that sounds like Feeding The Fire.

Describing the group’s sound requires a little background. Lead vocalist Ken Cannon and his brother on drums, Keith, grew up listening to bands like Joy Division and At the Drive-In, which later influenced the direction their music took.

The tangible passion of heavy rock music eventually drew the brothers from albums to live shows.

“Keith finally made a decision that he didn’t want to be in the audience any more — he wanted to be on stage,” Ken Cannon said.

The move brought a heavy sound, combining the raw emotion of punk rock with the musical focus that drove the art rock movement.

The band’s songs center around compositional intricacies reminiscent of ‘70s concept albums.

Frenzied guitar solos on top of precise drumming characterize the band’s music. Imagine if Yes’s Close to the Edge met The Mars Volta’s De-Loused in the Comatorium.

The band’s music is easily categorized into the progressive rock genre, but members of the group aren’t satisfied with that label — or any other label, for that matter.

“We hear prog a lot, and I guess it’s something that people can latch onto, but when you label yourself prog, people either latch onto it or push themselves away,” Ken Cannon said.

“Even prog has its limits,” bassist Smith said. “We want to write a simple pop song if we want to.”

This attempt at genre-defying flexibility distinguishes Feeding the Fire’s discography.

Their debut album, DisInfoNation, is as diverse as it is dynamic, and it isn’t subtle in its politics.

Sound bites from political campaign speeches and news anchors line the title track as a snarky reminder that you can’t always believe what you hear.

“We are a nation that has been fed this story — and as a nation, we need to wake up and see the reality,” Ken Cannon said.

“DisInfoNation is a jab at the mainstream media, which I see as a propaganda machine. The album is a call for people to find alternative sources for media.”

Carrying on with the theme of defying labels, Ken Cannon said he wants to make sure that no party is affixed to his group’s message.

“Politically, we don’t try to say that we’re in this party or this party. We’re just about the philosophical aspect of personal liberty,” he said.

Melding these left-field views with a sound that is uncharacteristic for its home, Feeding The Fire is looking to make an impact on a prog-deprived market saturated with garage rock and pop.

Now it’s time to see if Chapel Hill can take it.

http://www.dailytarheel.com/content/feeding-fire-trades-labels-liberty - The Daily Tarheel by Joseph Chapman

March 3, 2010 - Maybe it's just because I don't get to write about this kind of stuff much being a music writer with a Triangle focus, but I'm having a lot of fun with Feeding The Fire's new DisInfoNation LP. It's progy, but tastefully so, and its focus is less on musical pretension than on just how much sonic fun the Chapel Hill quartet can cram into its arrangements. "Crash Landing" is a great examples of this. Reverbed keyboards warble with Middle-Eastern weirdness only to be switched out with pure guitar god excess. And through it all the pure, piercing tones of Ken Cannon's voice soar to grandiose heights. Melodramatic? Sure. Revelatory? Not really. Tons of fun? You better believe it. So check out the track below, and if you like it, make sure you head out to Local 506 Thursday as the band celebrates its new release alongside bluegrass act Big Fat Gap and Raleigh garage band Rocket Surgeon.

http://www.dailytarheel.com/dive/local-song-week-crash-landing - The Daily Tarheel by Jordan Lawrence

Naked to the Invisible Eye, the three-track debut EP from Chapel Hill quartet Feeding the Fire, is big on scope. Over the course of 15 minutes, the band takes modern rock's fuzzed guitars and emphatic rhythms on a Joy Division-meets-Yes tailspin. The band's ambition is impressive enough, the eight or more phases of the six-minute "Chupacabra" marked by complex rhythmic shifts, zigging from distorted Barre-chord pathos to serpentine, arpeggiated meditations, all through well-developed textures.

--Grayson Currin - Independent Weekly