Published on Dec 13, 2013
This re-interpretation of Loveless has been created with utter love by Kenny Feinstein. But Loveless: Hurts To Love is not merely an album by this fanboy simply to pay homage to his favorite album and to relive his joyous experience of listening to it over and over again. The record in fact shows much more gravity and sincerity, as this frontman of the band Water Tower approaches this re-work as a brand new work, viewing it with completely fresh perspective; it is almost as if this album was conceived not to stand in the shadow of the original Loveless record as some random album of covers, but to stand side-by-side with it as a sister album.
And it is not just that Loveless: Hurts To Love is not a mere “fan” album. But the fact that this record is a folk cover version of an album defined by loud and massive walls guitars, is at best ludicrous, if at all believable. But Feinstein absolutely pulls it off and makes the acoustic adaptation of the songs from this shoegazer masterpiece sound totally and earnestly believable. His acoustic versions have the same textural complexity as the original ones on Loveless. Even though this is very much a solo effort, Loveless: Hurts To Love is more than a man singing and strumming his guitar.
Feinstein’s approach to Loveless is rather dark. In addition to his acoustic guitar, he uses the mandolin, dobro, fiddle, and dulcimer to create a shadowy and downright spooky musical tapestry on which he sings his version of Loveless. It is a nice change to understand the lyrics, as Feinstein’s vocals sound like a human singing, and not like another musical instrument blended within the rapture of guitars. And since the sonic fabric of this record is quite different from the original album because of its quietness, the compositional style is very different, too. In essence, this album brings to fore new facets of Loveless and makes it magnificent and beautiful for completely new reasons. “