The Features

by Charles Spano
The Features are a psychedelic rock outfit that plays fresh, off-kilter pop that sounds like a head-on collision between Ray Davies and Elvis Costello with the Elephan 6 Collective picking up the pieces and putting them back together in the American South. Formed in the small, hidden town of Sparta, Tennessee, guitarist and vocalist Matt Pelham, bassist Roger Dabbs, keyboardist Parrish Yaw, and drummer Rollum Haas began playing their quirky and contagious pop as the Features aroundPelham's colorful personal ruminations. Their self-titled debut EP, released in 1997, drew heavily on thick keyboards and an original, updated new wave sound. The Beginning EP -- a classicist pop record, at once as lush and sun-dappled as the Shins, and as pointed and probing as the Jam, followed with a U.K. release on Fierce Panda in 2003. The record was put out in the United States by Universal in March of 2004, with slightly altered tracking. Several other U.K. 7"s never saw a U.S. domestic release, but the The Beginning was finally unleashed stateside in March 2004. Exhibit A, The Features debut full length, was relesed in September of 2004 by Universal.