Douglas Sim - Feel to Heal

Douglas Sim 

Feel to Heal
self-released; 2017

3.5 out of 5

By Dan Weston

Douglas Sims is an artist from Texas who recently released a ten-song album entitled Feel to Heal. It’s a fairly straightforward psychedelic/atmospheric rock album. Sims utilizes a bunch of reverb, synths, delay effects and more to create the general vibe of the album.

The album is certainly on the lo-fi side which for the type music it is is not ideal. I had a lot of problems making out the lyrics. There was a lot that could have been done on the post-production side to make the vocals have more clarity. One thing for sure is using subtractive EQ on the reverb itself around 700hz and 250hz which would have still do it's thing while adding more definition. I thought the drum sound was solid and I was impressed. The acoustic guitars however could have used some work on certain songs.

Up first is “Feel to Heal” which is indicative of what else you can expect on the album. It’s very atmospheric and instead of building starts to do the opposite which I thought was an interesting choice.

If you stripped back the reverb and other effects on “Keyhole” it would be a pretty straightforward pop song. “Dynamite Copyright” was a highlight. He double tracks the vocals and it works quite well. I think comparisons to Pink Floyd were obvious. “Best of Times” was another solid song where he utilizes resonance filters while “New Song Everyday” has a bit more movement from the percussive synth lines.

“On the Way to My Heart” is stripped back and revolves around acoustic guitar, vocals and melancholy. The song is solid but was also muddy and again needed some subtractive EQ on the lower mids. “Far Beyond Our Expectations” has a different feel than a lot of other songs but I thought the vocal melody towards the end was possibly the catchiest on the album. “Grammy Award Winning Instrumental” was indeed an instrumental that has some inspired moments.

I would recommend that Sims considers handing off his mixes to a mastering engineer in the future. They were a number of sonic and dynamic inconsistencies that a pro could have handled with relative ease.

Overall Feel to Heal was a cohesive album with a number of well written songs. He has a sound which is one step ahead of the curve and l look forward to his evolution.

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