Twelve Stops and Home

1	Sewn 5:54
2	Never Be Lonely 3:32
3	Love It When You Call 3:33
4	Fill My Little World 4:07
5	Kettle's On 4:06
6	I Want You Now 3:50
7	Strange 4:22
8	Anyone 4:10
9	Rosé 4:16
10	Same Old Stuff 5:10
11	Helicopter 3:18
12	Blue Piccadilly 8:43

Barnes & Noble

Everything is cool nowadays. Genres once vilified and mocked -- disco, hair metal, prog rock -- have all been revisited, their existences justified, and their influence worn proudly by new crop of bands. The latest? The soft rock of the '70s. The Feeling make no bones about their love of ELO, 10CC, Elton John, and Supertramp on their strikingly assured debut, which has already made them stars in England. With the breathy "oohs" and "ahhs," extended refrains, twin guitar solos, and giant, swaying choruses, Twelve Stops and Home should come with a cigarette lighter. It might all have been laughable if the songs weren't so good and the musicianship so strong. Feeling frontman Dan Gillespie Sells knows his way around a melody, and almost seems like he's inviting you to embrace the cheese along with him. And if you do, smiles come with nearly every song, whether it's the pure pop of "Fill My Little World" and "Never Be Lonely" or big ballads "Strange" and "Blue Piccadilly." And you have to love little moments, such as when, on "Love it When You Call," when Sells sings, "I love it when you call," the rest of the band backing him up harmoniously with "He loves it when you call." Don't feel guilty if you get hooked on the Feeling. Cheese is good. Bill Pearis

All Music Guide

With its smart combination of pop/rock proficiency and brightly layered vocals, Twelve Stops and Home yielded some of England's most omnipresent tunes of 2006. Several years before this debut's release, the Feeling were little more than a ski lodge cover band, serenading Swiss snow boarders with Top 40 hits in exchange for lodging and chump change. Assimilating the tricks of the trade paid off, however, and Home's 12 tracks brim with delightfully appropriated moves: a pumping piano riff from Supertramp ("Fill My Little World"), swells of harmonies à la the Bangles ("Love It When You Call"), a zany chord progression straight out of the Beatles' druggiest days ("Helicopter"). The quintet knows its strengths and caters to them at every turn, letting frontman Dan Gillespie-Sells helm a handful of ballads (his delivery is impeccable, especially on the bittersweet British megahit "Sewn") and showcasing the Feeling's biggest asset: harmony vocals. They stack their voices like a bubblegum version of Queen, mirroring each other's sighs and crescendos, even halting the music altogether for a few measures of polyphonic a cappella. The latter move is especially effective on "Fill My Little World," where a Merseybeat-styled chorus is smartly contrasted by a sobering vocals-only outro. This brand of bold-faced classicist pop is a tricky thing to pull off -- especially in the wake of semi-jokesters the Darkness, who excelled in their craft while simultaneously making a mockery of it -- but the Feeling have the chic (and perhaps the cheek) to do so successfully. Andrew Leahey