The Thing With Feathers show their live performance chops with new EP, Ready to Burn – Live at Exit/In.

By Graeme Smith

Feature photo by Austin West

The Thing With Feathers is Nashville, USA based indie rock pop act featuring David Welcsh, Alex Hendricks, and Chris Roussell. Collectively, they’re inspired by contemporary pop rock acts like Coldplay, The 1975 and The Strokes and have featured several times before on this blog, going back to 2021 when we discovered them through their track Static. We liked it so much, we named our rock playlist after it.

Now they’re back with a live EP, Ready to Burn, recorded at Exit/In in Nashville, a venue close to the band’s hearts. The EP starts in simmering fashion thanks to the slow-building intro of Something Wrong. By the time its fuzzy riffs kick in, you can tell the crowd are feeling the energy, then the vocals seduce with their emotional delivery.

There are plenty of familiar tracks in this live performance. These Drugs provide an early highlight thanks to its memorable hook and indie pop swagger. Everything I’m Missing slows things down during a melancholic first verse before hitting hard in the chorus. The set and the record ends strongly with title track from their 2023 EP, Waste My Revenge.

Elsewhere we get the machine gun intro of country-infused Golden, the lively, noodling Can You See Me, the crowd-pleasing Don’t Break My Heart, the punchy rock vignette Saturday Night and anthemic title track Ready To Burn.

I’ve mentioned before about how tricky live recordings can be but with this EP, The Thing With Feathers have turned this vulnerability into a superpower, translating their energy and experience as a live act for a wider audience to enjoy. Let’s hope we can sample the real thing here in the UK soon.

Ready to Burn – Live at Exit/In is out now and you can give it a listen below.