Whenever the topic of great bands you’ve probably never heard of comes up The Felice Brothers have to be near the top of ant roots music list. For 15 years the upstate New York band has delivered their
brand of DIY ramshackle roots music to adoring fans over 16 albums and delivering dynamic live performances that feel more like a tent revival than a rock show.
The band’s last release, “Undress” was in the pandemic halcyon days of 2019 and now thy’ve released a new single “Inferno.” The title is from the the third of Tom Hanks’ Dan Brown films 2016 film. The song continues like a kaleidoscopic memories of pop culture – Fight Club, Claude Van Damm, Kurt Cobain – all filtered in the bands sepia bittersweet melody.
Ian Felice.says concerning the song “This song, more than anything, is about the persistence of certain mundane memories, and how they take on hidden meaning and significance, how their symbols become part of our inner lives, and how they are transformed in our minds, “It’s also about youth and growth and transformation. Memories of the film are obscured through the lens of time. Does Jean Claude Van Damm actually ride a motorcycle along the banks of the Rio Grande? I don’t recall, but still I have this image in my mind. I just remember how horrible the movie was. The two characters in the song are transformed into swans in the final verse, in a dream, as they are swept into the fire of another, more frightening reality.”
“Inferno” is the first single of the band’s untitled album to be released later this year. It was produced by The Felice Brothers, engineered by James Felice and Nate Wood, and mixed by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Phoebe Bridgers). The song also sees the continuation of the new lineup of the band that debuted with Undress, consisting of Ian Felice, who shares songwriting and vocal duties in the band with his brother James Felice, bassist Jesske Hume (Conor Oberst, Jade Bird) and drummer Will Lawrence.