The Felice Brothers – Favorite Waitress (2014)

It's always fun to hear music that sounds completely new and super innovative, but at least to me, there are many times when I just want to hear good old-school music with all the fun of making music. The Felice Brothers sound like they couldn't care less about sounding different or unique. They're just having fun with music and you can really hear it. I guess this is also explained by the band's history. They started their career by playing on the subways in New York City. Most of their songs are strong in Americana folk and country influences and they haven't put much effort in thinking about sounds for their albums. They just play organic set of instruments that sound like they would do live. They have lots of humorous lyrics and the melodies are simple, yet kind of catchy. It's simple music, but it makes me happy to listen to them.



I remember first hearing about The Felice Brothers from a friend of mine who worked at a record shop in Finland many years ago. It took me a while to really get into this band though. I think I needed to be familiarised more with their influences like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, who I obviously knew but hadn't really listened to on a large scale. I bought this album on a CD from a local London record shop second hand.

The album starts with a wonderfully quirky Americana song Bird on a Broken Wing. I feel like this song could've been released in the early 70s and no-one would think anything strange of it. Cherry Licorice is a fast tempo country rock song that just makes me smile because I can hear the joy of playing so well. Meadow of a Dream is closer to the songs on the earlier Felice Brothers albums. This kind of lazy folk rock requires a couple of times of listening before it opens itself up, but it's worth it. Lion has beautiful folk fiddles and the echoey electric guitars give the song a slightly different sound to the rest of the album. Saturday Night has strange organ sounds in the beginning that makes it a bit different from the first half of the album. There are also some echoey electric guitars in the background. Constituents continues with organ sounds. The melody is really beautiful when it gets going. Hawthorne has excellent saloon style piano playing and a mood that has an air of old wild west. Katie Cruel is mixing proper rock music with strange indie parts where endearing organ sounds are mixed with buzzing overdriven guitars. No Trouble sounds a lot cleaner and this is the beautiful side of The Felice Brothers. The changes between these songs show just how versatile the band is. Alien brings in very echoey guitars that chime with a lo-fi vocal line on top, until the fiddles come in and change the mood of the song. Chinatown reminds me of some Bright Eyes songs. It's probably because the mood is melancholic, but a bit more modern than in other songs on the album. Woman Next Door is a proper rock song with some bluesy saloon atmosphere. This is the kind of stuff that must be great played live. The album ends with a beautiful piano ballad Silver in the Shadow that unmistakably reminds me of Tom Waits, even if the vocals are completely different.

I've never really thought about The Felice Brothers having music videos. The first one from this album I found was for Lion. It's a nice low-budget music video where the band members hang out and do silly things in black overalls. There's some playing, running around in circles, throwing pies, running and playing with dogs in the countryside. I like these kinds of videos where the band is just having fun.

I really like The Felice Brothers, but I find it quite difficult to say exactly why. That's why I'm struggling a bit with this blog post. In any case, if you want organic sounding Americana folk and country rock with playful attitude, I truly recommend you to check this band out.

Listen to the album on Spotify.