Electric Feat. Electric Feat

A new album from Greece reached me recently. It is becoming something normal, now multiple labels from the Greek speaking world have found their way to my inbox. Again I find myself writing on one of them, as Electric Feat compares quite nicely with albums from several Belgium rock bands I reviewed over the past year.

It is not so normal at all, so let me first give an insight on Greek music and myself. I am quite certain that the first Greek song I was exposed to was the theme song to 'Zorba The Greek'. My aunt had the single I remember loving the way the melody sped up. Little did I know at the time that the song was the biggest hit of 1965. In fact for decades it was the best scoring song in the all time ever chart, to be disposed in 2011/12 by Gotye's hit. 'Somebody That I Used To Know'. Next is 'Rain And Tears', Aphrodite's Child's huge hit in 1968 and other hits by the band. After that Vicky Leandros, Nana Mouskouri and Demis Roussos solo, but not a single song I particularly liked. In the 80s Jon & Vangelis scored a few hits. After that nothing, barring the Greek pop music I heard busdrivers play in Greece while on holiday, until Inner Ear Records contacted me.

Electric Feat is a classic rock group. The influences of 60s rock and 70s classic rock are all over the place. Hints at psychedelia play a role as well. Singer Georgios Dimakis, who we also know as Prins Obi, certainly is a Jim Morrison fan and is able to change his voice into the deeper range. like Morrison did, but without losing his ability to sing, like Morrison did. The band as a whole is not afraid to throw in some The Doors elements as well. More to stress certain parts of the album than to play at pretending to be The Doors. Just as easily classical rock parts come by with a strong riff flying around. For The Netherlands fans of DeWolff should pay extra attention here.

Photo: Eftychia Vlachou & Kostas Stergiou

Listen to Electric Feat and it is easy to spot many musical references to the era classic rock ruled. The band consists of four people who like to frequent a pub together and undoubtedly discuss and listen to music there frequently. I can imagine them deciding on one evening to start making music we love together. The result is not original, that's impossible for an album that looks backwards, but certainly strong. Just listen to how firm the rhythm section plays. Themos Ragousis' (Madam Manthos), bass guitar holds the deep end, almost too scary to look into. Kostas Stergiou's (The Tree) drumming lays a perfect foundation. This leaves all the freedom to excel for guitarist Dionysis Nanos (Dr. Nanos). His guitar is all over, without being afraid to hold back and let a song implode and lean on the rhythm section to keep it going. 'Leather Jacket' is an excellent example of how the band is able to play with melodies and dynamics.

Rock may be dead. It was The Doors themselves that proclaimed it to be so. They were proven wrong a long time ago. With bands like Electric Feat, even if the album is to be considered to be an outing by (musical) friends, we can be certain that rock will live a while longer. No matter what dance oriented people say. They existed when I was young,  called soul, then disco, house, EDM and whatever. I never cared, o.k., there's always a good exception, there always were and will be good rock bands. Electric Feat is one of them. Influences are all nice and good but without inspiration and skills there's no good album. I can bake a cake but will not sell it a bakery. Electric Feat however deserves a spot in every record store.

Rock dead? Don't make me laugh!

Wo.

You can buy Electric Feat here:

https://electricfeat.bandcamp.com/album/electric-feat


or listen to our Spotify Playlist to find out what we are writing about:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glazu53/playlist/6R9FgPd2btrMuMaIrYeCh6?si=KI6LzLaAS5K-wsez5oSO2g