Rating: 7.5/10
Best songs: "Dark Red Birds", "Stained-Glass Windows in the Sky", "She Lives By the Castle"
"I will be the first person in history to die of boredom" is a great opening line for an album. "And I will have as my epitaph the second line of `Black Ship in the Harbour'" is a cheeky follow-up. By the way, that `second line`, taken from the band's Ignite the Seven Cannons album, is "I was a moment that quickly passed". It's a striking beginning to the autumnal Poem of the River, the seventh Felt album, which continues to build on the new-found musical partnership between guitarist/lyricist/singer Lawrence and organist Martin Duffy and despite being slightly not as good as Forever Breathes the Lonely Word, is another thing of wonder to add to a canon work that was, frankly, an embarrassment of riches by this stage.
The mood here is alternately romantic, rough, sweet and laid-back, with two epic songs - "She Lives By the Castle" and "Riding on the Equator" - dominating proceedings in terms of length. The former is a real beauty; if only it didn't go on just that little bit too long with its extended organ solo at the end, we'd be talking one of the top ten Felt songs. Still, for the first four minutes, it's one of the most delicate, sweetest things created by this band, and Lawrence's vocals and guitars in particular are rather wonderful. "Riding on the Equator" isn't quite classic Felt, but it slides along prettily and contributes to the album very well. There's a long guitar solo at the end that might not jump out at you upon first listen, but it`s very sweet indeed! The opening "Declaration", with its rough, ready and simpler sound, foreshadows the down-to-earth sound of The Pictorial Jackson Review, while the stunning "Stained-Glass Windows in the Sky" would be just as much of an influence with its short, sharp burst of pop bliss. The latter song in particular encapsulates everything great about the Lawrence/Duffy era of Felt in just over two minutes; a peachy, slinky guitar, a beautifully resigned Lawrence vocal and a insistently catchy beat, it drifts in and out before you know it, but it`s fleeting nature is the main reason it works. In fact, Poem of the River may be the most innocuous, nicest Felt album of them all. It doesn`t scream for your attention, it just plays along very nicely and proves to be the slowest-burning of Felt`s ten albums. "Silver Plane" is an understated, gentle little ditty that I like more and more every time I hear it, while the closing semi-acoustic "Dark Red Birds" is up there with "A Preacher in New England" as one of the absolute best Felt album closers; haunting, relaxing, poetic and deeply lovely, it just pulls you in and keeps you there.
A perfect, mellow accompaniment to Forever Breathes the Lonely Word's pop-fuelled sparkle, Poem of the River proved that a this stage, Felt could do no wrong. Disappointing detours into cocktail-bar jazz instrumentals over the next two albums (less so on the otherwise great The Pictorial Jackson Review, overwhelmingly so on the weak Train Above the City) would disrupt their momentum, but sadly no band was ever perfect!