It’s been four years since Nashville, TN’s best kept secret The Features snuck onto our speakers with their critically lauded debut, Exhibit A.  The record strengthened their already rabid hometown cult following and won over critics in both the US & UK press while shows with Kings of Leon, the Raconteurs and The Walkmen and sets at Redding & Leeds festivals showed off their brazenly flawless live show. Quite suddenly, The Features disappeared and left us wondering what had happened to the Southern four piece who were bound to become our next favorite band. But now, with trademark pop hooks and stellar songwriting in tow, The Features are returning this spring with an off-kilter masterpiece of a sophomore album, Some Kind of Salvation, due out June 9th.  The album will be distributed nationwide by Red Eye Distribution.

The Features formed as middle-schoolers in Sparta, Tennessee, a small Southern town that boasts bluegrass picker Lester Flatt as its claim to fame.  The group of classic rock-loving adolescents had big ideas while sitting in the school cafeteria, but they hadn’t acquired instruments yet.  Due to the lack of a proper drum set, the Features first generation percussion section was beat box, and no one was eager to play bass.  Bassist Roger Dabbs remembers the band’s sales tactics.  

“They were like, ‘man, you gotta love the bass!” he says. “‘Listen to this bass.’ They put on some AC/DC and I was kind of like…‘where’s the bass?’  It was completely drum and guitar heavy. But I ended up really loving the instrument.”

After high school, founding members Dabbs and Matt Pelham relocated to the college town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in the mid-’90s, eventually recruiting current drummer Rollum Hass, a fan of the band who already knew most of the Features’ drum parts upon auditioning.  The band never went without devoted fans, and their kinetic individuality garnered attention from industry folks who believed them to be “the next big thing.” Their jumping live show includes a far-reaching catalogue of beloved songs, among many new ones.  Yet the question remains, why do The Features remain unknown to the majority of the indie culture? The answer could possibly have roots as far back as the nineties, when the band was constantly bearing the brunt of bad luck and bad timing, being led astray by indie record labels with empty promises with no recorded music on the market to show for it.

The Features’ official debut Exhibit A was released on Universal in 2004 and was met with astonishment and widespread praise in the good ol' fashioned print media circles (8/10 NME, 4 stars Mojo, a rare 4.5 stars in Paste) but for one reason or another, The Features remained under the radar. The major label deal allowed the band to tour extensively, joining the Kings of Leon on the road for their US and UK tours. “The touring was the best part of that whole experience,” Dabbs says. “That is the only time I can say in our history that we’ve actually been able to just play music. Every other time we’ve had to have part time jobs or full time jobs working the music into it. I think the ultimate of what all of us have wanted is just to play music.”

Shortly before the band was due in the studio to record their second album, creative differences caused the band and label to abruptly part ways. The decision to continue making music was an easy one. “I don’t feel like anyone in the group is doing it for any reason, other than the fact that we have to. It’s what we do,” says Haas.

Some Kind of Salvation’s lilting opener, “Whatever Gets You By,” is seemingly the band’s call to arms.  With the eerie suspense of a performing acrobat, Pelham softly sings:

So here we are, it’s like we never really left the start
Time heals the wound, but then there’s still a scar
To remind us of the way it’s meant to be