By Kevin Koeninger

Any emo lovers searching for a new source of self-deprecating, depressing music should avoid The Feeling at all costs.

Railing against the current trends of anti-pop music, the London-based quintet pumps out radio-friendly, sugar-coated love songs just as good as any.

Drawing heavily from influences such as the Beatles, ABBA and the Beach Boys, The Feeling create a sound reminiscent of late 70s soft rock, complete with all the sorry love clichés imaginable.

On influences, The Feeling frontman, Dan Gillespie, said, “I’m just incredibly greedy to hear more and more pop gems.”

The band’s recent rise to popularity, both in the United Kingdom and abroad, mimics the Beatles’ climb to fame in the early 1960s.

Strengthening their musical chops by playing two-hour cover sets every night in the French Alps, The Feeling were eventually discovered by a music business representative that offered them a chance to record. The end result was “Twelve Stops and Home,” an uplifting and poppy album that has generated a great deal of attention in mainstream media outlets including “Entertainment Weekly” and “Spin.”

Close harmonies ripped straight from the Beach Boys’ LPs, coupled with lyrics expounding on the positives of love, create an alluring sound bound to have listeners begging for more.

Songs like “Strange” and “Rose” showcase the band’s ability to create poignant, yet remarkably melancholy, ballads. Even though the lyrics become a bit over-the-top at points (“The white to your left / The red to your right”), it becomes obvious that The Feeling take pop music seriously. To that effect, in a recent interview with Spin magazine, Gillespie said, “The worst thing anyone’s called us is an Indie band.”

Nevertheless, fearless guitar solos like that found in “Helicopter” demonstrate not only the band’s musical prowess, but also their willingness to stretch the boundaries of pop music. These bits show that just because it is pop, it can still rock. The band readily admits they are all “secret Iron Maiden fans.”

With groups trying so hard today to distance themselves from the mainstream pop music scene, it’s incredibly refreshing to hear a band that is not only unafraid of pop, but embraces it.

The Feeling’s sound hearkens back to the glory days of Top 40 radio, while incorporating a variety of influences to produce a fresh outlook on an all but discarded pop scene.

-Kevin Koeninger