Rating
If you're looking for a signpost as to where new country music should be heading, then check out The Felsons, who avoid all the cliches of the genre so gracefully you might think they didn't exist. Vocalist Deans Owens leaps over the possible pitfalls of a local lad singing about Death Valley by simply belting out his lyrics with a hearfelt passion that has no truck with copying other people's vocal styles.
The Felsons annihilate prejudices about country music. You don't have to wear cowboy boots to appreciate the primal pounding of On Fire or the stuttering guitar swagger of Boomerang Boy.
The Felsons United States stretches from suburban Texas through to the arid deserts of Arizona while the radio plays Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen. It sounds like a great place to visit.
Warming up the crowd for an act like the Mavericks can't be easy.
However, Edinburgh band The Felsons rise to the challenge admirably. Already three albums old, they're a good-time combo who can honky-tonk with the best of them without sounding overly derivative. And like the headliners, they aren't rigidly tied to any style.
It wasn't just the audience who were made up to see the band - two of The Mavericks sprinted on stage and started drawing on their support band's faces with lipstick.
The Felsons are set to do for Edinburgh what Edinburgh would not do for them.
With two albums, an EP and a new single selling well, spiralling commitments across the UK and the recent boost of being name as support band for The Mavericks forthcoming UK tour, the band is helping place the Capital on the international Country music map. But the band are barely recognised in their home town ...
Owen's voice has more in common with the classic Scots pop of The Bluebell's Ken McCluskey than any of Nashville's favourite sons, but that does not mean The Felsons should not earn their spurs regardless. They may not do it Hank's way, but then neither did Garth Brooks.
Scotland's head honchos in the new country world have found more favour than fame to date, but this remixed song from the second album Glad is clear demonstration of their crossover potential.
Joseph Black is one of those sensitive verse-meets-roaring-chorus songs, strangely currently getting airplay in Nashville, but not picking up much radio exposure in The Felson's native Edinburgh.
Dean Owens has always insisted that the band were as pop as they were country, and this track fits that billing.
On Fire, is co-written with guitarist Calais Brown, is a mellower slow burning affair which kicks back and flips the Stetson over the eves, while Belfast Blues broods away to good effect. On this evidence it is not hard to see why The Mavericks were sufficiently impressed to invite the band to open for them on the forth-coming British tour.
I first heard The Felsons at Newcastle Arena where they were the support to the Mavericks. They transmit a real enthusiasm for the music which is so reminiscent of the early sixties bands, although the music is country orientated it is hard to put a label on this band.
One thing is certain both their albums 'Glad' and 'One Step Ahead of the Posse' are excellent and
I can't recommend them highly enough.
Just what you would expect from a band from Edinburgh. Live they are
powerful and really enjoy what they do, The Felsons are a band to watch out for
... GO OUT AND BUY THESE ALBUMS!!!
Rating
The Felsons Glad 2nd album of dustbowl classics and hard hitting country ...
... all original songs that stand proud next to anything Steve Earl has written.
A prime Scottish act that deserves to make it in the
mainstream.
The latest offering from the boys from Edinburgh is their proper debut album, released on Greentrax's new G2 label, and it more than consolidates the position established by their previous videos and eps.
The Felsons' press release cites rockabilly, Chicago blues, Dylan, The Beatles and The Jayhawks among the band's influences, but it goes a lot further than that. You may also hear strains of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, The Eagles, Wilco, Lou Reed, even Tish Hinojosa. But the real influence here is that of The Felsons themselves, particularly Dean Owens's writing and singing and Calais Brown's guitar playing.
Highlights include the chugging, Stonesey opener, Boomerang Boy, with Brown's fabulous electric guitar solo, Postcards, a cool country track with some nice banjo picking and the steel laden Born To Lose You, which is as good as anything coming off the Row, but boasts better lyrics than most.
Elsewhere the guys opt for sparse percussive and acoustic sounds on Joseph Black, more steel and sensitive vocal on You're Everything and some spirited rockabilly on What About Me, running the gamut of country rock styles and demonstrating their skill in all of them.