Artist: The Fever
Album: In The City Of Sleep
Label: Kemado Records
Tracks: 16
Length: 58:00
Review By: Jacob Gehman

The cover of this album says a lot about the CD located inside. It is very busy. There are a lot of shapes and faces and designs to look at, mostly done in a slick grayscale, with only scattered colors here and there. A closer look finds a theme of an age we don’t know anymore. It’s both theatrical and morbid, while being a caricature of both. A more intricate look might allow the theatrical aspect to become something surreal out of a circus. Yet, because the album cover is so busy it also gets very tiring to look at.

Musically, however, The Fever does not quite match up with what is artistically being presented. On the one hand the music has flairs of theatrics and the circus environment. But it is no where near as varied as the album cover would make you think it might be. The songs plug along at a steady pace, as maddening as they are interesting.

There is a strong rockabilly overtone to The Fever, which comes out most in the guitar tone and the general way the guitars are played. The percussion sometimes takes cues from Tom Waits. It meshes nicely and feels like The Fever.

The part of the band which most bogs the album down is the vocals. Through most of the tracks they yelp and careen through the mostly 3-5 minute songs with only occasional pauses. The vocals which are bearable and interesting for several tracks quickly becomes tiring and redundant. They just aren’t entertaining or good enough to be able to carry an album by themselves from start to finish. It doesn’t help that they sound a bit distorted, as if some kind of effect is being used on them.

Interestingly, unlike many albums of this nature, “In The City Of Sleep” actually becomes more tolerable after the half way mark. Partially this is because we hear more variety than before, and partly because the songs just seem stronger. Particularly in the vocal area. The song “Eyes On The Road” is a spoken word piece that is strongly reminiscent of Drive-By Truckers’ spoken word tracks.

In some moods this album is a very fine listen. However, it just doesn’t endear itself to repeated plays, or even a complete listen. Kind of like the album art it stands best when it’s not being studied and picked apart. Pick this up if you enjoy the rockabilly arena of music but want something that has a vision beyond most rockabilly.