There is something that is delightfully disreputable and even faintly dissolute about the Felice Brothers. But that is part of the undoubted charm of this black-humoured roots five-piece from upper New York state.
They turn up like a dodgy uncle with a bottle and a heap of gritty and vivid stories from the dark side of singer/writer Ian Felice’s imagination and experience and proceed to deliver them in quasi shambolic style, coloured by wheezing accordion, tearful fiddle and rusty, weathered voices.
It’s their shtick of course but such is their ability to create their own world that the spell hasn’t worn off since their debut in 2008.
Of the nine tracks laced with bad drugs, hard nights and poor life choices, all accepted as the way of the world, it is hard to resist Aerosol Ball, Jack at the Asylum, Triumph 73 and the separation ballad, Sell the House.
