Feeder released their sixth studio album Silent Cry this week. Yes, that's right, their sixth.

They're a band who've gone about their business with the minimum of fuss since unleashing their debut Polythene, 11 years ago. While some people may think they don't know anything about Feeder, chances are anyone who owns a radio will have heard more than a handful of their songs.

The Singles, the self-explanatory compilation released in 2006, is a case in point. It features 20 tracks, about half of them, including Just The Way I'm Feeling, Buck Rogers, Yesterday Went Too Soon and Just A Day, were huge successes and were played and played on radio at the time of their release.

Music buyers weren't the only ones surprised by how many hits Feeder had in their back catalogue. The band's frontman and main songwriter Grant Nicholas was, too.

"I was amazed, actually! I think we've released 28 singles now," he says. "It shows we've got longevity, and that we don't have to copy any trend.

"I was worried about doing The Singles at the time, and we were worried it was going to give out the wrong signal to people," he continues.

"When you bring out a compilation like that, people think you're stopping or splitting up and I was misquoted on the subject a few times in the press. But the album actually worked in our favour – it's our second biggest-selling album after Comfort In Sound – and it connected us with a load of fans who maybe didn't know we'd done so many songs, or maybe hadn't realised a song they liked was by us.

"It was good for people to hear our earlier tracks from things before Echo Park, too. It means now we can play a bit more of the older back catalogue live."

If it hadn't been for the compilation, we might have heard forthcoming album Silent Cry a little sooner. Grant was in the middle of writing songs for the new album when he had to stop and work on promoting The Singles.

At the time, he explains, it felt like an unwelcome distraction.
"Once I get in the studio I'm a nightmare, and I get totally immersed in the studio space. If I have to do too much other stuff I just freak out, so yeah, it was a distraction, to be honest."

The resulting album is among the band's finest; not as immediate as Echo Park which spawned their most chart-friendly songs, and understand-ably not as emotional as Comfort In Sound – that album was written after the suicide of original bandmember Jon Lee in 2002 – but it is an epic, melodic record, and sees Feeder return to a more rock-oriented sound.

Thread

Thematically, the album touches on love, relationships, and asks a lot of questions. In fact, negativity is a common thread running throughout each of Silent Cry's 13 tracks.

"That's just the way I am," admits Grant, originally from Newport in South Wales.

"I pick up on negativity, but I also try to find something positive in that. I doubt things a lot, and I think anyone who writes music has a bit of insecurity too.

"There's a lot of relationship stuff on the album – songs about break-ups – as well as songs about change and unity, and the world.

"A lot of things have been going on in the world in the last three or four years since our last album; there have been natural disasters, wars, and a lot more interest in the environment.

"People are taking more notice of that now, and all the subjects go into the pot. That's how I write lyrics. We Are The People is an idea I'd had for ages which is about unity, like a call to arms. It's about everyone getting together to change."

Since Feeder's last album, Grant and his wife Kana have had two children, and the 40-year-old maintains his young family have changed the way he works and writes songs.

"I'm far more miserable now!" he jokes. "Not really, but being a dad has made me more creative, and I worry less about things I did before.

"You always want people to like your music, and you hate it when you get a bad review, but my priorities have changed and I have a different perspective."

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