There’s always been something of the busker to Simone Felice, so it’s no shock that he and his brothers (Ian and James) entered the music biz in the mid-2000s by performing covers on New York’s subway trains.

With a stint in The Felice Brothers band done and dusted – he left in 2009 – Simon has sashayed between his own band (The Duke & the King) and solo work. It’s with the latter that he is making serious inroads to capturing that beautiful (if occasionally irritating) ambiguity between visionary musician and soul-searching chancer.

Yet there is something resoundingly good about most of the 10 songs on Strangers – Felice gravitates between often fearless songwriting (inspired, in part, by his experience of emergency open-heart surgery in 2010) and meandering melodies that wouldn't be out of place on Astral Weeks. Yep – that good.

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Download: Running Through My Head, Our Lady of the Gun, Bastille Day