Wow, these guys were tied with The Hold Steady's Stay Positive for Tim Van Huss's Album of the year 2008 with their superb eponymously-titled album (see my July 2009 post on 2008 albums) . Their formula did not change on Yonder Is The Clock. This fourth full length album is another great slice of Americana, with its melancholic Old West nostalgia. Again, they interpret that sound so rooted in the upstate New York Hudson River Valley/Catskill Mountain school of roots folk made popular by Dylan, The Band, and Levon Helm. They have everything from the decedents of Eastern European folk music to dust bowl fiddle music and often in the same song. Most attractively though with so much of what I like about great folk music is that ability to transform you to a dusty old path (while riding on an 'ole paint') on the plains or an old saloon in California or something that you would not normally experience except in maybe movies. And maybe some early 20th Century dime store novels. Let's call it sepia-tone rock.
I think it also speaks to how literate a group like The Felice Brothers are. I am reading back my opening part of the review and thinking it sounds like I am talking more about a great book I just read rather, than an record. So for the singer/songwriter types out there this just really does it for me. I had the album very early in the 2009 year and just now getting around to reviewing it.
It's hard to find words for great literate groups like this who encompass their sound around fiddles, accordions, acoustic guitars, tubas, wash boards and the like (Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes for example). I pick my favorite song that was really kind of a single, if a band like The Felice Brothers actually record with singles in mind, called Run Chicken Run as the song that represents the feel of this excellent roots folk rock album.
I think it also speaks to how literate a group like The Felice Brothers are. I am reading back my opening part of the review and thinking it sounds like I am talking more about a great book I just read rather, than an record. So for the singer/songwriter types out there this just really does it for me. I had the album very early in the 2009 year and just now getting around to reviewing it.
It's hard to find words for great literate groups like this who encompass their sound around fiddles, accordions, acoustic guitars, tubas, wash boards and the like (Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes for example). I pick my favorite song that was really kind of a single, if a band like The Felice Brothers actually record with singles in mind, called Run Chicken Run as the song that represents the feel of this excellent roots folk rock album.
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