The Feelies were one of hundreds, if not thousands, of bands influenced by the Velvet Underground. Over four albums, the Feelies proved that they were one of the greatest VU-influenced bands ever to plug in. Bar/None’s recent reissuing of the Feelies’ first two LPs, Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth, offers fans a good reason to revisit their special breed of rock and makes it easy for novices to investigate a couple of the best recordings of the ’80s.

Operating out of the New Jersey suburb of Haledon, the Feelies sounded like the Velvets if they’d never met Andy Warhol, never did any drugs stronger than caffeine, never owned a black leather jacket, never considered adding viola to the mix, and never asked a stunning female Euro model to sing for them. In other words, the Feelies were a de-glamorized Velvets, a less citified Velvets, a Velvets excluded from Manhattan’s art-world glitterati. And, despite those hindrances, they sounded like a million bucks in hard-earned change.

The Feelies’ 1980 debut LP, Crazy Rhythms, is a paragon of quiet-to-loud/leisurely-to-urgent dynamics. Besides the VU-ish traits belabored above, the quartet—guitarist/vocalist Bill Million, guitarist/vocalist Glenn Mercer, drummer Anton Fier, and Keith DeNunzio (crucially, all played percussion)—injected no-wave angularity and Talking Heads-like anxiety into their stripped-down rock (some prefixed that word with “college” back then, to indicate musicians who appeared to operate with three-digit IQs). With his lived-in deadpan delivery, Mercer sounded a helluva lot like Lou Reed, but with oxygen rather than heroin coursing through his veins. (In a gesture that’s so un-rock and roll it’s practically heroic, the Feelies famously asked an Ann Arbor, Michigan crowd at the Blind Pig club to refrain from smoking—in 1991… in a state where indoor smoking, barbarically, is still allowed.)

The group’s follow-up full-length didn’t surface till 1986 (these guys were perfectionists and, according to Crazy Rhythms producer Mark Abel, “the most obstinate people I’ve ever met”), and the ensuing years brought a subtle change to the Feelies’ sound. Stan Demeski and Dave Weckerman replaced Fier on drums and percussion, and Brenda Sauter took over the bass spot from DeNunzio. With this new lineup, The Good Earth locks into more of an easygoing, R.E.M.-ish lope (Peter Buck produced the record—hey) more often than it motors frantically, as it often did on the debut.

Somehow the songs on The Good Earth—even the rollicking and tumbling “The Last Roundup”—sounded at once edgy and laid-back; the Feelies came across like terminal introverts trying to “rock the fuck out,” but the members’ natural insularity prevented things from getting too boisterous. However, this tension enhanced the excitement of their needlingly catchy, surgically surging rock, which was as lean and wiry as the band’s two frontmen, Million and Mercer. The cover of the Beatles’ “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey)” perfectly captures the Feelies’ controlled hecticity, while proving that geeks with really good record collections were capable of creating their own records worth geeking out over.

The Good Earth peaks on “Slipping (Into Something),” which begins in the manner of the Youngbloods or Grateful Dead’s liquid lackadaisicality and gradually shifts into a Velvety “Some Kind of Love” amble before turning on the afterburners for one of the most exhilarating climaxes of their—or anybody’s—existence (it reminds me of Meat Puppets’ “Away,” which is very high praise, indeed). “Slipping” is the definitive Feelies song, encapsulating what’s so great about them: a narrow yet scintillating array of guitar tones, a mastery of exciting dynamics, understated vocals that know their goddamn place, and wicked yet rudimentary percussion.

Much of the rest of The Good Earth sounds like the Byrds if they consisted of Buddhist monks rather than California hippies: At heart, it’s more placid than acidic. You could say that the Feelies really run through the jangle on this album (if you like getting punched, that is). Ending an album with a subdued yet uplifting song called “Slow Down” is another un-rock and roll gesture that deserves a medal for bravery.

Got a lot to learn
Got a ways to go
When ya gonna learn
What a way to go
Slow down

Rock and fucking roll.

The Feelies would go on to release two more outstanding albums, 1988’s Only Life and 1991’s Time for a Witness; I especially recommend the former, which Water Records reissued in 2008. But for many, they peaked, and peaked hard, with Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth (if you buy the CD of the latter, you receive a code to download three bonus tracks, including covers of the Beatles’ second best song, “She Said, She Said,” and Neil Young’s “Sedan Delivery”).