The Lovely feathers

The Lovely Feathers
Fantasy of the Lot (Sparks)

Three years after a splash with their debut, Hind Hind Legs, and subsequent radio silence, Montreal quintet the Lovely Feathers resurface in fitter form. Mark Kupfert’s punctilious lyrics and delivery, less shrill now, suit the band’s knack for enterprising melodies that seem like lost memories at first hearing—dig the bittersweet, baroque bubblegum of “Long Walks."8/10 Trial Track: “Ossified Homes” (Rupert Bottenberg) - Montreal Mirror

SPIN.com's Top 5 Up-and-Coming Montreal Bands
Our intrepid reporter hits the underbelly of Pop! Montreal to discover the next Arcade Fire.
By SIMONA RABINOVITCH 10.08.08 10:05 AM


3. Lovely Feathers:

Lovely Feathers / Photo by Tarik Mikou

Fun, quirky, pretty pop hooks and jolly keyboard melodies with Ska rhythms and earnest vocal howls have made a local favorite of this Vampire Weekend-esque, geek-chic band of pals who met at McGill University. They've toured with the likes of Metric and have a album on the way -- heck, they're on the way!
- SPIN

"You get to a certain point in university where you start not caring about anything, and I think we had all collectively gotten to that point. We could have very well joined an intramural hockey team, but instead we thought, Let's play music together." That's the skinny on Montreal's The Lovely Feathers, according to bassist Noah Bernamoff.

Lucky for us the buzzworthy band opted for music over sports, considering the eccentric pop goodness of their newest record, Hind Hind Legs, released this month on upstart Montreal indie label Equator Records. These are the people who also just released the widely touted debut album from Islands, featuring ex-Unicorns members.

And despite their grave origins, The Lovely Feathers deliver jangly post-punk-infused pop that is tragically earnest and wildly uplifting.

"Music is supposed to be therapeutic," says Bernamoff about playing. "To us, this is therapeutic; we hope it's therapeutic to others."
- Ottawa Express

For eccentric and quirky pop-rock, The Lovely Feathers deliver on all counts. They're from the same genes that sprung the Unicorns, but this band chose the path of a more complex, layered sound . Based out of Montreal, The Lovely Feathers are masters of tension-filled, stumbling rock borrowing from a diverse set of influences such as Television, Pavement, Talking Heads, The Pixies, and the Arcade Fire and aren't afraid to switch gears or change lanes without signaling. The Lovely Feathers have a way with absurdist song content, exacerbated by constant use of repetition, as they chant empty sentences ("I really, really, really, really like you" or "He gave me a fruit, and it still had a peel, still had a peel, still had a peel") or non sequitors ("She'll eat you up, she'll eat you up, she'll eat you up") until they become hypnotic. Songs start off as hammering guitar assaults and then swerve and backup into piano-driven jazz fests to power pop singalongs, always with a sorrowful, emotive piano in the background.

- playboy.com

The Lovely Feathers:
Hind Hind Legs
[Equator; 2006]
Rating: 7.6
The Lovely Feathers seem poised for success: They hail from the buzzing indie beehive of Montreal; they're labelmates with Islands on the newly formed Equator Records; hell, they even have a name derived from the animal kingdom and Marcel Dzama-esque illustrations on their album sleeve. But it isn't merely the contemporary cred signifiers that make Lovely Feathers a potential hype band; it's the music.
Armed with a sophisticated pop sensibility, the Lovely Feathers are never short of musical ideas, as they spastically shift tempo, volume, and style in highly compressed spaces. The songs are unpredictable, leaping from barely-there strumming and whispered vocals to bombastic full-band arrangements. Album opener "Pope John Paul", for example, effortlessly packs at least five different parts-- only two of which repeat-- into less than four minutes.

Unfortunately, the band's eccentric approach to songwriting is mirrored in its disastrously quirky lyrics. Pop music needn't be literate or even literary to be great, of course, but too many of these songs are marred by distractingly precious words. Often the delivery is tongue-in-cheek; elsewhere, cringe-inducers like "I like the chapped skin above your eyes/ Even when you complain about my hives" from "Mildly Decorated" are sung with what sounds like conviction. Such couplets, when paired with this high level of musical invention, mark the Lovely Feathers as heirs to the Unicorns' legacy of smart-ass pop. But where the Unicorns managed to situate their cloyingly cutesy lyrics in an album-wide concept about death, there's no such coherence here, just grating loose ends. Sometimes the lyrics manage to be amusing, but mostly they're as irritating as the aforementioned chapped skin and hives.

Still, there's strong evidence here that the Lovely Feathers are a superb indie pop group in the making; enough, even, to make you forget the lackluster lyrics. "In the Valley" is the band at its tightest, as the thumping bass of its disco-tinged intro gives way to razor-sharp guitar interplay and a swooning string section. "Wrong Choice" is classic indie rock in the Weezer vein, with sing-along verses and swelling choruses.

The Lovely Feathers have the potential to shape their ideas into something more focused, and the songs on Hind Hind Legs would have carried more weight had they not been sabotaged by silliness and fluffy wordplay. Maybe Yanofsky had this in mind on "Ooh You Shocked Me", when he sang, "Who has a heart? I have a heart." Perhaps next time, he'll prove that sentiment to be more than just another ironic line.


- John Motley, April 27, 2006
- www.pitchforkmedia.com

Live, Montreal's Lovely Feathers are an instant sell - all ebullient, interactive energy. On disc, they require more work, and not just because Mark Kupfert and Richard Yanofsky's hyper vocals can be jarring. There's lots going on here, and their frenetic brand of geek-rock - like a much more ambitious Weezer on amphetamines - requires multiple listens.
But with slicker production and less filler than the limited-release My Best Friend Daniel, Hind Hind Legs pays off mightily. Updates of Daniel standouts (The Only Appalachian Cornfield, Lion Eats the Wildebeast) and new efforts (Pope John Paul, In the Valley) showcase some of Canada's freshest songwriting.

If there's any justice, these guys will be huge.
- The National Post

The Lovely Feathers

Fantasy of the Lot

After a three-year hiatus due to things ranging from falling in love with a runway model to getting lupus, the Lovely Feathers are back with Fantasy of the Lot. Just as frenetic as their 2006 debut, Hind Hind Legs, the Montrealers' second record manages to go from their usual chaotic indie rock with "Lowiza" to a more Eastern-inspired sound with "Agrotaker," probably due to the fact that one of the member's went on a self-discovery trip to Kathmandu. And the entire band seem to have rediscovered how to make a record, keeping it simple and making sure it's not sloppy. The time off has done the Lovely Feathers well. (Sparks - Exclaim Magazine

Easily the most 'accessible' of DiS' three tips from Montr¨¦al, but don't read that a sleight on their multi-layered soundgasms. Coming off like a meld of our beloved Youthmovies circle-jerking with Razorlight's undeniable pop hooks and the playful melody of Belle & Sebastian, The Lovely Feathers could quite easily become the biggest alternative pop band in the world. They've presence, looks and on tonight's appearance, come replete with a keyboardist sporting sparkly hot pants. Shove that all in a ever-so-slightly ramshackle melting pot and you've got The Lovely Feathers. They really are quite lovely... - drownedinsound.com

The Lovely Feathers don't want you to buy a copy of their debut CD, ``Hind Hind Legs." Not today, anyhow. The Montreal-based indie pop quintet would much rather you waited at least a day or two -- until after you've had a chance to catch them live onstage. Next chance: T.T. the Bear's Place tomorrow night.

The Feathers -- whose always quirky, frequently raw variety of indie rock evinces heavy Pixies influences alongside elements of glam, new wave, and mod revivalism -- view themselves first and foremost as a live band. And if it were up to them, listeners would start with the real thing.

``We're always happier when people see us live and then buy the album than the other way around," says Richard Yanofsky, one of the quintet's two frontmen (he and Mark Kupfert share vocal and guitar duties). Of course, he hastens to add that it's not like the Lovely Feathers are keen to impose any rules on prospective fans. ``We're plenty happy for them to buy the album and then see us live, too. Don't get me wrong."

Yanofsky admits there's likely more than a bit of the band's professional inexperience in that live-first perspective. ``Hind Hind Legs," released May 2 by the fledgling indie label Equator Records, not only marks the band's first official release but is the product of its first serious foray into the studio. Formed in 2004 at McGill University, the band had all of four rushed days of studio experience when sessions for ``Hind Hind Legs" got underway last year.

``We were pretty big amateurs when it comes to recording," Yanofsky says. ``We had done our own demo CD where essentially we were planning on recording three or four songs and we ended up with 13. This was the first real studio experience where you sit there and you sort of tinker with everything, change the songs around, make them into the album versions."

The tinkering itself was more than a bit of an adjustment, Yanofsky says. The band's initial inclination was to approach songs exactly as it does onstage. Trouble is, playing with all your might doesn't produce the same results in the studio as it does in a club.

``You're playing your instruments hard. And live, somehow you feel it, you see it," he says. ``But when you're in the studio it just means that every time you strum it goes sharp for a second."

It took some time, Yanofsky says, to understand that ``the best live songs are not necessarily the best album songs" and to make peace with the notion of deconstructing a song, finding its essence and rebuilding it as a studio number.

Drew Malamud, who co produced ``Hind Hind Legs" with Metric and Broken Social Scene guitarist Jimmy Shaw, says Yanofsky isn't giving himself and his bandmates enough credit.

Once the Feathers adjusted to the idea of the studio as an ``an artistic tool rather than just as a capture device," Malamud says, they quickly began performing like veteran recording artists.

Everything else, Malamud says, comes down to the limitations of recording. ``There's something that happens live that you can never capture on a record because you can't see their eyes and the sweat and the cut hands," Malamud says.

The band seems to have made the adjustment fairly well. ``Hind Hind Legs" is an album very much worth hearing on its own. It's an oddly joyous affair perfect for listening to with windows down, seat back, and the volume set just at the point where you can't bring yourself to look at the car next to you in traffic.

Yanofsky says words typically are the last thing to come together in the Feathers' songwriting process; Kupfert handles most of the lyrics. For the most part, the results are entertaining, though some songs edge toward being too clever for their own good.

A typical passage, from the song ``Rod Stewart," offers, ``If it's my body you want, then come on and tell me," evoking a nice chuckle on the first listen, but little on subsequent passes.

Ultimately, "Hind Hind Legs" presents the Lovely Feathers as a sort of fun-loving Modest Mouse. The music is smart, and the band's members are either too savvy or too honest to take themselves seriously enough to ruin it.

``We're pretty confident that if you like the music on the album and you come out to see us, you'll have a great time," Yanofsky says. ``There's still energy on the CD. It's not like the CD is morose and the live show is ecstatic. You listen to the CD and you understand the music, you understand everything."

The Lovely Feathers play T.T. the Bear's Place along with the Spinto Band tomorrow at 10 p.m. Tickets $10; 617-492-2327.
- Boston Globe

The Lovely Feathers
By Spin Staff 05.05.06 3:00 AM
By: Alyssa Rashbaum

"Hey! Let's go outside, put the car in drive, to the cornfield's side," The Lovely Feathers' Richard Yanofsky sings on the band's latest album. "Then we'll take off our pants, kiss the corn and dance, kiss the corn and romance." The Montreal band is bursting with absurd yet carefree lyrics, coupled with exuberant pop hooks and calls to the dance floor on debut full-length, Hind Hind Legs.

The record is equally infused with the band's eccentric personalities: Yanofsky claims to be plagued by guilt for not yielding to his grandmother and becoming a doctor; guitarist Mark Kupfert has an obsession with tabloids; bassist Noah Bernamoff was almost a professional hockey player; pianist Daniel Suss is an expert on East Asian politics and drummer Ted Suss has a weakness for riot girls. Their sound might not be cohesive, easily categorized or logical, but the Lovely Feathers have managed to come up with one singular focus: making you dance.
- Spin Magazine