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Hailing from upstate New York's Catskills Mountains, the Felice Brothers look like their entire approach was based on staring long and hard at the Band's second album cover: Beards, white shirts, hats and ill-fitting suits. The comparisons to Big Pink/Basement-era Dylan are also inevitable. Yet this second album proper from the three siblings and their bass player Christmas (an ex-travelling dice player, apparently) is so chock full of whiskey-soaked, ramshackle bonhomie that it'd be a hard-hearted music critic indeed who didn't succumb to the charms contained therein. The group have somehow taken Americana and wrung out some more good times. It's time to visit the bar again!
With most of the numbers croaked out by brother Ian, whose vocal chords draw most of the Zimmerman comparisons, this is a collection of songs that are equal parts travelogue, shaggy dog story, drunken lament and filched traditional fare. They're all captured in gloriously scratchy lo-fi (complete with ambient chat, phone conversations and other audio verite) as befits a band whose last recordings were supposedly completed in a chicken coup on a two-track. And while their first album, Tonight At The Arizona, was a little too same-y when digested in one sitting, this is a much more varied feast.
Like Dylan, their self-mythologising puts them not in the modern age, but somewhere in the early part of the last century. Jaunty, piano-led ballads like Greatest Show On Earth or Take This Bread are lifted by parping brass and rollicking choruses, like a night out in a riverfront bar, filled with unfaithful women and gun-toting men (guns are mentioned in just about every song) bent on drunken revenge. Elsewhere the waltz time of Ruby Mae approaches a Tom Waits-like pathos. Whiskey In My Whiskey sounds like a murder ballad that's centuries old.
Yet all these tales are shot through with a red-eyed humour that sounds as authentic as their beards. This is how they manage to convince the listener. Frankie's Gun! With it's truck driving narrative and wheezing accordion is particularly hilarious. Rather than some studious authenticity, they sound like they're just having a good time. And that's just about the only recommendation you need to seek out this fine album! --Chris Jones
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is music that comes out of the soil. With a mix of styles ranging across the east coast of America via the Florida Everglades, through to New Orleans and back into the Catskill Mountains, the music also seems to acknowledge its roots in English and Irish folk, and there's the odd whiff of salt air as they veer almost towards sea chanteys.
Some have compared them to Dylan and The Band especially with some of the phrasing and the cadence of the songs. But if you can call up some video's on YouTube then you can see that the lead singer's perfomance is perfectly natural and his voice just happens to sound like Dylan rather than being an affectation. And for me The Band were a lot slicker and on the "soul" side of affairs, whereas The Felice Brothers are more slapdash and rustic. And I mean that in a good way.
There is a range of tempo's, and on tracks like "Frankie's Gun" just try not to sing along. But it's in the ballads that they really show their strength.
Lyrically this is dark stuff with seemingly a murder around every corner, but there are some delightful touches, such as on "Don't wake the scarecrow", a reprise of the subject matter Springsteen touched on in "Candy's Room". In particular I loved "In that cold room your breath would twist just like ghosts do" hinting at far more than the the words actually say.
Somehow they have produced a an album of warmth and great fun, but at the same time having great depth and sadness.
Hopefully these first two albums are the beginnings of a long career for the band (the three eldest sons of a carpenter and an "adopted" brother who was a professional dice player). Hopefully they'll not let the undoubted success that they deserve go to their heads.
My current favourite band.
Some have compared them to Dylan and The Band especially with some of the phrasing and the cadence of the songs. But if you can call up some video's on YouTube then you can see that the lead singer's perfomance is perfectly natural and his voice just happens to sound like Dylan rather than being an affectation. And for me The Band were a lot slicker and on the "soul" side of affairs, whereas The Felice Brothers are more slapdash and rustic. And I mean that in a good way.
There is a range of tempo's, and on tracks like "Frankie's Gun" just try not to sing along. But it's in the ballads that they really show their strength.
Lyrically this is dark stuff with seemingly a murder around every corner, but there are some delightful touches, such as on "Don't wake the scarecrow", a reprise of the subject matter Springsteen touched on in "Candy's Room". In particular I loved "In that cold room your breath would twist just like ghosts do" hinting at far more than the the words actually say.
Somehow they have produced a an album of warmth and great fun, but at the same time having great depth and sadness.
Hopefully these first two albums are the beginnings of a long career for the band (the three eldest sons of a carpenter and an "adopted" brother who was a professional dice player). Hopefully they'll not let the undoubted success that they deserve go to their heads.
My current favourite band.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Although these guys have adopted the hairy bearded look of the Band and occasionally sound Dylanesque they stamp their own identity firmly on this disc - a set of 15 songs without a dud to be found. Tales of the old and new West predominate as evoked in titles like Frankie's Gun, Whiskey in my Whiskey and Helen Fry. In a strange way the sound evokes not just alt-country legends like Green on Red but also the swirling organ and heavy back beat of the Wailers at their best. This is an outstanding collection which rewards repeated listening.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This lot are easily the best new band I have heard for years. Following on from a debut record (Tonight At The Arizona) that i thought they couldn't possibly match, this album proves me wrong. Highlights are Love Me Tenderly, Greatest Show On Earth and Ruby Mae. As exhilarating and raw as it gets, love it..buy it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
their best.......
..effort and the album that encapsulates everything that's great (or was great) about the Felice bros. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Costa Rica
Classic Americana
I've come to the Felice Brothers backwards via hearing Simone Felice play some of these songs with the Duke and the King (Radio Song and Don't Wake The Scarecrow). Read more
Published 17 months ago by SimonChamberlain
Oh Brothers
Phew-sometimes you'll read the reviews, disagree, and let it go. Everyone is entitled to their opinion etc. etc. Other times-well this is one of those. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Gizmophobic
Sheer Genius
Evocative, moody and brilliant, The Felice Brothers recreate an America replete with woes past and present. Read more
Published on 17 May 2010 by Alistair Mclean
Perfect ramshackle drinking music with the ghosts of legends adding...
Has elements of many different bands but they manage to remain consistently their own beast. The atmosphere of The Pogues permeates some of the tracks, a touch of Dylan.. Read more
Published on 7 April 2010 by Steve Blower
Good but not great
For the strength of songs this album contains, I feel it's overly long. They could have chopped approximately a third of the album and it would have a greater impact. Read more
Published on 12 Oct 2009 by Mr. A. Gower
"My car goes; Chicago; on weekends I pick up some cargo"
I didnt know what to expect when I ordered this album from Amazon. I have never heard of 'The Felice Brothers' but I was over joyed at what I heard when it arrived in my post. Read more
Published on 7 Sep 2009 by N. Thompson
depressing and over rated
I bought this on spec having read one review and after listening to one track on a sampler CD. If ever something "promised more than it delivered" then this is it. Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2009 by R. Harris
Oh, it's a wonderful life!
This is a quite splendid album, the kind that only comes along every 3-4 years or so, the kind that re-ignites your interest in music when you thought all was lost, the kind that... Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2009 by Black Box
Album of the Year?
Having already bought both Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes this year and been slightly disappointed I purchased this CD with a little trepidation. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2008 by M
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