Strangers

"A founding member, with his siblings, of raucous Americana group The Felice Brothers, Simone (the "e" is silent) is a poetic singer-songwriter to rival the very best. He left his brothers in 2009, recording solo and as part of country soul ensemble the Duke & the King.

With two critically acclaimed novellas to his name, Felice has an unabashedly literary sensibility, and a particular knack for taking intimate personal narratives and widening them so they hint at the musical equivalent of the great American novel.

Bye Bye Palenville is a gorgeous meditation on the responsibilities of fatherhood, while Our Lady of the Gun shifts from a classroom shooting to the battlefields of Iraq to focus on America's ambiguous relationship with firearms.

Felice has a melodic flow that never lets his powerful words overburden the songs, his spookily intense delivery bedded in lush but understated arrangements combining acoustic guitars, shades of strings and soulful harmonies.

Strangers is his most measured and thoughtful album to date. By the time you reach The Gallows, his weirdly uplifting contemplation of impending death, you know you have been taken somewhere special." (The Telegraph)