After Comfort in Sound
The following year, the band began to record the follow-up album Pushing the Senses, in which only one live date was played being at the Hammersmith Apollo on 1 May 2004 in order to speed up the recording process, while still playing a live show during the year.
Due to the unexpected success of Comfort in Sound, the band's commercial expectations were suddenly risen highly with many aiming for bigger success with the following album. However, Pushing the Senses was not as well received with reviews being mixed and lead single "Tumble and Fall" dropping out of the top 40 in only three weeks despite charting in the top 5. Despite only charting at #13, "Feeling a Moment" which was the album's second single became much more well known over time, before the album's title track charted at #30 in July 2005 making it their least successful single since 1999's "Day in Day Out". Sales of the album itself were over 150,000 by the end of the year, well below half of the sales of Comfort in Sound and also only ran for 15 weeks in the top 75 in comaprison to the 36 of the previous album. At the same time, The Echo Label reported a loss of 2 millon pounds in the 2004/05 financial year, although this was not blamed on the sales of the album, as at the time sales were seen as successful due to the fact it was doing better than Comfort in Sound at that stage by 22 percent. Despite these events, the album still became Feeder's most successful in terms of chart positions, charting at #2 in the UK albums chart, and was also Q Magazine's 39th best album of 2005, with "Feeling a Moment" in their top 100 songs of the year. Blame for the sales was placed on the lead single release by many fans, citing that if "Feeling a Moment" was the lead single, the album's chances to emulate Comfort in Sound's success would have been much more higher. In 2010, Grant Nicholas later reflected on this decision, citing that it was caused by the actions of their European label PIAS (Play it Again Sam) getting involved, wanting a crossover single after having toured with Coldplay the year before in 2003.
This loss however hampered the albums promotion chances, with The Echo Label deciding to make a one-off distribution and promotion deal with EMI for their singles album, which also included a television commercial. This paid off in which the album was a return to overall sales form, selling over 400,000 copies and as of April 2012, is on 497,700. A change of business structure at Echo and sales of The Singles, enabled them to report a "modest profit" at the end of the 2006/07 financial year.
2008 then seen the label look for a buyer, this caused numerous delays in the band's last album for the label being Silent Cry, before eventually deciding to release the album as a suitable buyer was never found. Feeder were interested in buying the album off the label to self-release it, with many deals from other labels being on the table. Echo however held onto the album and released it in July 2008. With the financial issues at the label, coupled with Radio 1 refusing to play lead single "We Are the People", the album became Feeder's first since 1997's Polythene not to gain a gold sales certification. It did however chart at #8 with very little mainstream attention or promotion, before dropping out of the top 75 in three weeks. "We Are the People" became Feeder's least successful lead single since 1999 when it charted at #25, while "Tracing Lines / Silent Cry" failed to chart, with the release later stripped down to download only due to poor radio play.
Touring was still a success playing their longest-running tour of 29 dates with many selling out. At the same time however, Echo was nearing the end of its existence as a record label. At the same time, staff members were departing from the company with the head of the albums promotion already being fired, eventually no more were left before owners Chrysalis made the label become a copyrights exploitation company, maintaining the copyrights on existing releases while no longer releasing any new music or signing any more artists. This effectively ended the existence of Echo.
In 2009, Mark Richardson parted company with the band to return to a newly formed Skunk Anansie, before session drummers Karl Brazil, Damon Wilson and Tim Trotter stepped in on a rotating basis, while Brazil recorded with the band and was an official member of their Renegades pseudonym-project. Later on in the same year, Feeder started up their own label Big Teeth Music, self-releasing their own music on the label. Although Feeder's commercial success today is far from that of Comfort in Sound, and mainstream radio play is non-existent, 2010's Renegades and 2012's Generation Freakshow have been top 20 successes in the UK albums chart.
Read more about this topic: Comfort In Sound