In an age of clever PR and the corporate hijacking of anything that smells faintly authentic, the Felice Brothers really are the real deal.

Hailing from deep in the Catskill Mountains, the three brothers and bass player Christmas started out a couple of years ago, busking on the New York subway and practicing in a chicken coop. They have become fairly popular in the USA but remain a more obscure delicacy in the UK.

Full of ramshackle and raucous Americana, blues, jazz and folk, the influence of Bob Dylan and the Band is immediately apparent on the Felice Brothers’ eponymous album, released earlier this year. Best of all is the show-stopping ‘Frankie’s Gun!’, with singer and guitarist Ian Felice weaving a tale of a drug-run gone wrong, full of audacious wordplay and rhyme. Elsewhere there are murder ballads, love songs and tales of hard drinking and living populated by small time crooks, outlaws and deadbeats. Here’s hoping they make it across the pond in 2009.