Join With Us (Deluxe Edition)

Album Review

When the Feeling first appeared in 2006 with Twelve Stops and Home, they were pop/rock architects wielding the proper tools (harmony vocals, organs, and tight songcraft) to build a fine shrine to ELO and Supertramp. Two years later, Join with Us shows the five bandmates mixing strong power pop songs with a scoop of melodrama and the occasional pinch of musical absurdity. For starters, there's a show-stopping sax solo in the middle of "Won't Go Away," an embellishment that turns the song into something from a 1980s movie soundtrack (think Rob Lowe blowing his horn during St. Elmo's Fire, minus the dangly earring). Elsewhere, the surplus of theatrical soft pop (no matter how well-crafted) doesn't pack the same appeal as the energetic numbers that dominated the band's debut. Thankfully, several standout tracks still pepper this set list, and "I Thought It Was Over" nimbly opens the album with disco beats, twinkling piano arpeggios, harmonized guitar leads, and one of the band's best bridges to date. Later, the lively mood continues with the bouncy title track (featuring a call-and-answer chorus sung mostly in falsetto) and "Turn It Up," a Queen-sized romp that is unabashedly grandiose and, as a result, all the more appealing. [This edition released in Japan includes bonus tracks.]