The Felice Brothers Deliver 'Flowers By The Roadside' Video

05-30-2024

(MPG) The Felice Brothers released the official video for their new single "Flowers By The Roadside," the second song to be released from their new album Valley of Abandoned Songs, out June 28. The 13-song collection is the first release on Conor Oberst's new label imprint Million Stars and consists of recordings primarily from sessions for the band's 2019 album, Undress, as well as their most recent release, 2023's Asylum On The Hill, with band's current lineup of Ian Felice (guitar/vocals), James Felice (piano/vocals), Jeske Hume (bass), and Will Lawrence (drums).

About the new single, Ian Felice explains: "This song was written one especially bleak winter day as a means to teleport to summer. Midway through the first and only take of the song James walked across the room, picked up a toy glockenspiel and plucked out a melody that had occurred to him. It was recorded in 2018 in our old cinderblock studio outside of Hudson, NY."

Paste Magazine praised Ian Felice's "sugar-sweet" vocals and called the song "one of the catchiest songs you'll hear all week." "Flowers By The Roadside" follows the release of "Crime Scene Queen," which was covered by BrooklynVegan, No Depression, Glide Magazine and more.

About the new album, Ian Felice adds: "There's a tightrope walk between light and dark in these songs between the magical wonder of existence and the ever-present sense of impending doom that comes with it. This album is my way of reconciling those things. A lot of these songs are amalgamations. The settings can change from verse to verse and scene to scene. I don't necessarily know who these characters are or where they come from, but they all evoke something very real in me."

The Felice Brothers will kick off an album release tour in support of Valley of Abandoned Songs on July 10 in State College, PA and will make stops in New York, Philadelphia, Cambridge and more. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit their website.

Valley of Abandoned Songs follows the surprise release Asylum On The Hill, which was released exclusively on Bandcamp in December, and their 2021 album From Dreams To Dust which was praised by Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, Brooklyn Vegan, Cool Hunting, PopMatters, The Bluegrass Situation, Glide Magazine and many more. The New York Times' Jon Pareles called the album's lead single "To-Do List" "...romping honky-tonk existentialism," while American Songwriter praised their "...fascinating, articulate, never pretentious wordplay" and proclaimed, "This album demands the full attention of the listener, an old-school concept; those that put the most into it will get the most out of it."

Valley of Abandoned Songs tracklist:
1) Crime Scene Queen
2) Flowers By The Roadside
3) New York By Moonlight
4) Younger As The Days Go By
5) So Long John
6) Black is My True Love's Hair
7) Raccoon, Rooster And Crow
8) Stranger's Arms
9) Birdies
10) Tomorrow Is Just A Dream Away
11) Let Me Ride Away With The Horsemen
12) It's Midnight And The Doves Are In Tears
13) To Be A Papa

Tour Dates:
7/10 - State College, PA - The State Theatre
7/11 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
7/12 - Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live
7/13 - Cambridge, MA - The Sinclair
7/14 - Portland, ME - Space
7/16 - Pawtucket, RI - The Met
7/17 - Fairfield, CT - StageOne at FTC
7/23 - Buffalo, NY - MOHAWK PLACE
7/24 - Toronto, CA - Longboat Hall
7/25 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
7/26-28 - Nelsonville, OH - Nelsonville Music Festival
7/26-28 - Chicago, IL - Wicker Park Fest
7/27 - Chicago, IL - Beat Kitchen
7/30 - Kalamazoo, MI - Bell's Brewery
7/31 - Pittsburgh, PA - Bottlerocket Social Hall
8/23 - Naples, NY - Hollerhorn Distilling
8/24 - Easthampton, MA - Arcadia Folk Festival
8/25 - Portsmouth, NH - 3S Artspace
10/29 - Leeds, UK - Brudenell Social Club
10/30 - Manchester, UK - Band on the Wall
11/1 - Sligo, Ireland - Sligo Live
11/2 - Dublin, Ireland - Button Factory
11/4 - Glasgow, UK - St Luke's
11/5 - Birmingham, UK - Hare & Hounds
11/6 - Cardiff, UK - The Globe
11/7 - London, UK - Electric Ballroom
11/9 - Bristol, UK - Strange Brew
11/10 - Brighton, UK - Chalk
11/12 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso Noord
11/13 - Cologne, Germany - Luxor
11/15 - Berlin, Germany - Kulturhaus Peter Edel
11/16 - Weissenhäuser Strand, Germany - Rolling Stone Beach