Album Review

Fine China has always sounded slightly out of step with whatever decade it happens to occupy, and that has long been part of the Phoenix band's appeal. On I Felt Called, Rob Withem and company turn that quality into a strength. The album sounds warmly familiar without becoming a nostalgia exercise, pulling together shimmering guitars, keyboards, post-punk melancholy and the clean melodic instincts that have followed Fine China since When the World Sings. Twenty-five years after that debut, the band still knows how to make sadness sound strangely beautiful.

The opening Television Set makes the album's preoccupation with memory immediately clear. Its backward glance toward 1987 isn't simply a retro reference; it establishes one of the record's central tensions. Withem seems to be searching the past for something that the present can no longer provide. Fine China's music has often carried traces of another era, but here nostalgia becomes part of the story rather than merely part of the sound.

Fraught With Danger follows with one of the album's most direct examples of Fine China's gift for combining uneasiness with melody. Bright instrumentation and darker thoughts coexist throughout I Felt Called. The songs can sound almost effortless on the surface while underneath them Withem wrestles with fear, regret, faith, memory and the difficulty of finding the right path.

That contrast becomes especially effective on No Long Face. At more than seven minutes, the song is considerably more expansive than the concise indie-pop Fine China was once known for. Instead of feeling excessive, the extra space lets the band settle into a dreamy groove. It is evidence of how much Fine China's sound has widened over the years without losing the melodic center that made the early records memorable.

Say Please turns inward, examining envy, dissatisfaction and the desire to recover something purer from an earlier life. Then comes the title track, one of the album's emotional centers. I Felt Called isn't a simple declaration of certainty. Its spiritual language is surrounded by doubt, darkness and self-questioning. That uncertainty gives the song considerably more weight than a straightforward statement of belief would have had.

Fine China has roots in the Christian alternative world of the late 1990s and early 2000s, but the spiritual dimension of this record feels personal rather than programmatic. References to heaven, God, ancient religious imagery and the search for direction appear naturally inside songs about ordinary human confusion. The result is an album interested less in providing answers than in documenting what it feels like to continue looking for them.

Pedal To The Metal is one of the record's strongest moments, marrying romantic devotion and anxiety to a melody that feels immediate without sacrificing the album's atmosphere. Gonna Need A Vacation is even more infectious. Its nervous energy and dark humor give the middle of the album a welcome jolt, turning exhaustion with modern life into one of the record's most memorable songs.

Then Fine China stretches out again with the nearly eight-minute Desert Of My Dreams. The song is spacious, reflective and quietly epic. Images of deserts, valleys, oceans and memory give it a dreamlike quality, while the patient arrangement allows the band to inhabit the mood rather than rush toward a conclusion. It is one of the clearest examples of how adventurous Fine China has become without abandoning its understated character.

Mauve Decade may be the album's defining song. Regret hangs over it, but so does the feeling of continuing forward despite never quite arriving where one expected. Withem's writing repeatedly returns to roads, distance, home and years that cannot be recovered. Fine China has reached the point where nostalgia isn't something the band needs to manufacture. The group has a real history to look back upon, and I Felt Called gains emotional depth from that perspective.

The final third remains remarkably strong. Like It Or Not is compact and melodic, while Hover Overton returns to the album's more expansive, dreamlike side. Closing track Nightshade (You Can't See) ends things on an appropriately uneasy note. Rather than tying the record's questions into a neat resolution, it leaves some of them hanging in the air.

The production helps make all of this work. Withem produced and engineered the album, with Bob Hoag handling the mix and Jason Livermore mastering. Guitars, bass and keyboards are given enough room to breathe, and Charlie Martin's drums keep even the longer songs grounded. Lydia Withem's keyboards and Jonathan Withem's percussion add further texture without making the arrangements feel crowded. The record sounds polished, but never sterile.

There are moments when I Felt Called asks for patience. With twelve songs stretching to nearly an hour and several tracks moving well beyond conventional pop length, it isn't designed as a collection of quick singles. But its slower, more expansive passages are also where Fine China sounds most comfortable taking chances.

What makes I Felt Called so rewarding is that Fine China isn't trying to recreate the band it was in 2000. The melodic DNA is still unmistakably there, but the music has aged along with the people making it. These are songs about memory, faith, disappointment, love and the uneasy realization that finding your direction doesn't necessarily mean your questions disappear.

For a band whose history stretches back to the late 1990s, I Felt Called feels surprisingly alive. It respects Fine China's past without being trapped by it and finds new room inside a sound the band has been refining for decades. Thoughtful, melancholy and quietly adventurous, it is the kind of overlooked record December Hotel was made to champion.