FELICE BROTHERS,THE - The Felice Brothers (10th Ann.Ed.) (Sealed) (LP/7")

LP+7" / 180g / Bonustracks. This reissue marks the 10th anniversary of the release of their seminal Self Titled album. This special re-issue includes two never-before-heard outtakes from the Self Titled recording sessions: Baltimore, and Watersider...included on a 7” with the LP (180 Gram), and as bonus tracks on CD. Cherished by fans and critics alike, this fifteen track opus by the Catskill Mountain based band of brothers boasts classics like Frankie’s Gun, Wonderful Life, Whisky In My Whisky and Don’t Wake The Scarecrow, and remains one of the most influential works of this century's indie-folk-rock revival. 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. 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