The Duke & the King - Long Live the Duke & the King (2010)
Genre: Indie Folk, Alternative Singer/ Songwriter, Alternative/ Indie Rock | 10 Tracks | MP3 256 kbps | 65 MB
Release date October 5, 2010.

The Duke & The King's debut album Nothing Gold Can Stay was one of 2009's most acclaimed albums, with its heady mix of rootsy folk-rock and vintage soul earning comparisons with artists ranging from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to Sly & The Family Stone. Little over a year later, the band led by Simone Felice and Robert 'Chicken' Burke prepares for the September 27th release of their second album, the extraordinary Long Live The Duke & The King on Loose Music/ Silva Oak. Entirely self-produced, Long Live The Duke & The King was recorded in the band's own studio/shack deep in their home woods of Bearsville, New York. Exalting in their ongoing love affair with rock, folk, soul and psychedelia, The Duke & The King have officially knighted two irreplaceable members to the cast, Nowell "The Deacon" Haskins (of Parliament-Funkadelic lineage), and The Sensational Simi Stone, both of whom contribute golden vocals throughout this stunning collection of songs.

Only a year after their acclaimed debut, Simone Felice's post-Felice Brothers band's follow-up is undeniably lovely. Songs about drummer boys and girls with daisies in their hair are lavished with old folk and soul, although sometimes the gooeyness needs more bite, Shaky's pops at US foreign policy: "Baghdad she's a mean old town/ I get the feeling she don't want me around." No Easy Way Out varies the mood with a terrific female-sung country rocker, but elsewhere the succession of vocalists repeating each other's lines with added wailing becomes grating.

Recorded in the band's Bearsville woodland shack with a band featuring ex-George Clinton musicians and an ex-Zeppelin/Dylan mastering man, the pedigree is certainly authentic but some of the songs seem to reshuffle familiar old cliches. Shine on You crosses Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door with Lionel Richie's Say, You, Say Me while Children of the Sun all but copies Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man, suggesting that TDATK's second effort has come too soon.


01. O' Gloria
02. Shine On You
03. Shaky
04. Right Now
05. Hudson River
06. No Easy Way Out
07. You & I
08. Children Of The Sun
9. I've Seen It
10. Don't Take That Plane Tonight

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