The Felice Brothers have announced that their new album ‘Undress‘ will be released on May 3 via Yep Roc Records. It takes a new direction for the band, according to Ian Felice, which sees them looking more outward than inward: “It isn’t hard to find worthwhile things to write about these days, there are a lot of storms blooming on the horizon and a lot of chaos that permeates our lives. The hard part is finding simple and direct ways to address them.”
This is certainly true on the first and title track released as a teaser for the album. ‘Undress‘ takes Dylan’s comment that “even the President of the United States must sometimes stand naked” and extends this thought to the wider political landscape, with a joyful expression that implies that maybe getting naked would be a good thing for everybody “Republicans and Democrats undress, even the evangelicals – yeah you, lighten up, undress, shake the maracas“.
The band members Ian Felice, James Felice, Will Lawrence (drums) and Jesske Hume (bass) teamed up with producer Jeremy Backofen to record the ‘Undress‘ album in the late summer of 2018, and made a very organic sound by cutting the tracks live to tape with very little overdubbing. Between personnel changes, families growing and the political landscape of the USA, the result is a tighter, more-paired down release. “Every song is a story,” said James Felice. “On this album everything was a bit more thoughtful, including the arrangements, the sonic quality and the harmonies.”
