Yonder Is the Clock

Maybe you don't know the Felice Brothers yet, but you will soon. This barn stomping roots rock band from Upstate New York has been gathering buzz for the last two years and with their most recent release, they are prepared to seize their fame.

Some quick background: The band is made up of three brothers, James, Ian and Simone Felice on accordion, guitar and drums respectively. Ian is the principle lyricist and vocalist, though all three sing. The band also includes two more de-facto brothers, Christmas, on bass, and Greg Farley, who plays the fiddle and washboard. The band is frequently compared to classic folk rock artists like Bob Dylan and the Band. But ultimately, this band is just Americana at its best. The Felice Brothers are sleazy troubadours with big souls full of stories about fallen boxers, murdered cabaret stars and drug heists gone wrong.

This is as close to American mythology as we have. Where else can you hear songs anymore about characters like Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James and Ty Cobb? You can picture this band sailing down the Mississippi on a makeshift raft, stopping at ports to serenade small crowds of onlookers, then wandering on further downstream. That's why it's especially fitting that their newest record, "Yonder Is the Clock," gets its name from Mark Twain.

This record finds the band turning down the volume a bit and embracing a more nuanced brand of songwriting. The leadoff track, "The Big Surprise," features a long quiet buildup and a brief climax. The record then launches into two of the more bombastic tracks, "Penn Station," about collapsing for the night in the famous train station, and "Chicken Wire," about being thrown to the bottom of the sea "wrapped in chicken wire." With the exception of the rollicking and infectious track, "Run Chicken Run," the rest of the album is a slower affair.

There's the soft call for love through the bars of a jail expressed in "Katie Dear," and the desperation of "Ambulance Man," where the narrator implores the ambulance driver to "Please let me ride, I'm at the end." There's the banjo tune, "Boys from Lawrence County," which features some of the most haunting lyrics on the record, "If he bore his teeth to scare us, would we see our likeness sheriff, in the pearly glow?"

Yet the true masterpiece on "Yonder Is the Clock" is the acoustic song, "Cooperstown," which tells the story of Ty Cobb's first game. Like Cooperstown itself, Cobb, who was arguably the greatest baseball player in history, is one of the pillars of American culture. And in a changing world that is gradually losing its boundaries, it is important to celebrate our cultural identity when we can. The Felice Brothers help us to do that while entertaining us at the same time.