LimeWire Music Blog

Felix may be a dude’s name, but the first thing you’ll notice about the band is vocalist Lucinda Chua’s bittersweet singing. Alternately wry and dreamy, her voice and lyrics on the group’s debut, You Are the One I Pick, fall somewhere between Regina Spektor and Cat Power on the female singer-songwriter spectrum. Chua also contributes delicate piano and classy, sometimes spooky cello to the duo, and Chris Summerlin’s guitar and percussion fills out their sound. Felix’s music is vivid and conventionally gorgeous, but also surprising for its sense of humor. “We don’t have to speak / We can just smoke, because it makes me look so cool / If I’m good, he’ll let me shine his cowboy boots,” Chua sings in “Ode to the Marlboro Man.” Album opener “Death to Everyone But Us” is jarring (in a good way) for the urgency it manages to convey, its frantic cello interludes underscoring the compulsive selfishness of a romantic reunion. On “What I Learned from TV,” Chua’s hurried, whispered vocal doesn’t come in until after the two-minute mark, but when it joins the somber piano and strings, it’s absolutely paralyzing.