Album Review: Featherweight - 'Exhaustion'

On ‘Exhaustion’, the third EP to come from Adelaide quintet Featherweight, the band produce an impressively striking, impactful record spread over its six tracks.

Showcasing both a penchant for building melodic, highly textural soundscapes and more lionhearted hardcore ferocity, ‘Exhaustion’ is at its best when placing the light and dark side by side and letting the contrast shine through.

To this end, instrumental opener ‘Beginnings’ sparks initial tension with melancholic, reflective guitar lines and understated percussion before falling under the intense weight of ‘Perpetual Motion’, the first taste of the more savage energy lying at the EP’s core.

From here, the band begin to steer away from unrelenting force, with ‘A Shift in Stability’ and ‘Fleeting Response’ channeling atmospheric post-rock finesse. There’s a clear distinction between the two sides of Featherweight’s sound, but rather than make the EP feel muddled, it provides a refreshing sense of variety.

The EP’s piece de resistance comes in the form of ‘10mg Diazepam and Gin’; bringing together the strongest elements of Featherweight’s sound in a way that’s at its most coherent on the whole EP. A concept piece based around the 1977 murder of Adelaide woman Rosa Simper and the wrongful imprisonment of local man Edward Splatt, one of the most impressive aspects of ‘Exhaustion’ is how well it flows as a single listening experience.

There’s a sense of clarity that comes together as each track fits as part of a bigger thematic picture.

‘Exhaustion’ is a fitting title for the latest effort from Featherweight. Despite its relatively short length, it proves a fairly emotive, draining piece of work, ultimately a thoroughly cathartic release that highlights the South Australian outfit’s key strengths.

1. Beginnings

2. Perpetual Motion

3. A Shift in Stability

4. Fleeting Respite

5. 10mg Diazepam and GIn

6. There Is Nothing