Thursday 30 December 2021

My Top Twenty-One of 2021: #2


2. The Felice Brothers - From Dreams To Dust

All hail my new favourite band! I've only been tangentially aware of the Felice Brothers until now, but their latest record made me a true believer and set me on a journey through their impressive back catalogue that looks set to keep me delighted for a long time to come.

Ian & James Felice write Americana with a very individual voice. As with tomorrow's Number One record, the lyrical detail here is what impresses me most and keeps me digging further, although this is often more stream of consciousness than storytelling. But their ideas are unique, highly engaging and often bring a smile to my face, from the wide-ranging goals of their To-Do List...

Wash all the pots and linens
Find a psychoanalyst
Go the bank and deposit checks
Sweep up the shattered dish

Return everything that I've borrowed
Change all the bloody gauze
Buy a spinach colored dinner jacket
Defy all natural laws

Ooh oh oh, cancel better homes and gardens
Ooh oh oh, admire gothic arches

...to their reverence for the forgotten Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, Inferno...

We were Seventeen
Hoping for better things
Like worms waiting for wings
And high school rings

Fight Club was sold out
We went to see Inferno instead
You said, "I never even heard of it
But I liked Karate Kid"

Who's that riding on the banks of the Rio Grande?
Jean Claude Van Damme

They write their own eulogy on Be At Rest...

Mister Felice, six foot tall
One hundred and forty-eight pounds
Soft teeth, sleep deprived, below average student

Owner of two ill-fitting suits
Wearer of hand me downs
Often lukewarm, and withdrawn
Bathrobe often loosely tied

Be at rest my friend
Be at rest

...and manage to rhyme Francis of Assissi with AC/DC on the epic album closer, We Shall Live Again

But perhaps best of all is the opening track, the Felice Brothers' vision of the apocalypse. It sounds like REM playing Steely Dan, or like Jazz On The Autobahn...

It won't look like those old frescoes, man, I don't think so
There will be no angels with swords, man, I don't think so
No jubilant beings in the sky above, man, I don't think so
And it won't look like those old movies neither

There will be no drag racing through the bombed out streets neither
No shareholders will be orbiting the earth, man, neither
It will be hard to recognize each other through our oxygen masks
The successful sons of businessmen will set their desks on fire
While 5-star generals of the free world weep in the oil choked tide



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