The Felice Brothers is two brothers (a third left a while back), Ian and James Felice, plus two others. They’re a mixture of a hoedown Americana group and a Waits/Springsteen folk-rock band, in other words they occupy a tier of rock made famous by The Band. Ian Felice’s voice is hoarse, strangled passionate, and his songs are impressionistic tales, in a direct line from Dylan, of sorrow and rage told by losers and lovers. What I heard of their previous four albums never inspired me to buy, but Yonder Is the Clock (the title taken from an unpublished Mark Twain work) is a huge leap forward.
Songs range from the sad country rock of ‘Katie Dear,’ through the woozy, tragic, strummed ‘Ambulance Man,’ to the stomping ‘Run Chicken Run.’ A couple of tracks are too much rollicking folk for me, but the overall effect is, despite the range of styles and speeds, surprisingly cohesive. One highlight is the rambunctious ‘Penn Station,’ turned into something electrifying by its opening casual guitar and soaring words: ‘Well, I died in Penn Station tonight, oh lord.’ Another, the gentle ‘All When We Were Young,’ with its piano and organ, sings of nostalgia for youth before the bombs came.
At first sounding untutored, Yonder Is the Clock transforms with a few listens to something enduring. The next Felice Brothers album will be much anticipated.