Blood Feathers ready to fly again

Back in 2006, Blood Feathers - Fishtown-based buddies Ben Dickey and Drew Mills - put out an album called

Curse & Praise

, an out-of-nowhere, remarkably accomplished debut collection that staked out harmonious indie turf under the influence of classic rockers such as The Byrds, The Band, and Tom Petty. Recorded in a week with Mazarin producer Quentin Stoltzfus,

Curse & Praise

made it all sound easy, but getting a hearing for one of the standout Philadelphia rock releases of recent years proved to be difficult. Courtships with marquee labels were never consummated, a national tour never came together, and

Curse & Praise

didn't find the audience it deserved.

The guitarist-songwriters decided to regroup, seeking a bigger piece of the sky in Prescott, Ariz., where they planned to hone their songwriting alliance while working at a restaurant owned by their manager, Newt Lynn. Mills never made it due to personal reasons, but Dickey says he spent a beneficial 18 Southwestern months working in the kitchen by day and as a guitarist in a Bob Wills cover band called The Prescott Playboys by night.

"I was 30 years younger than everybody else in the band," Dickey, 32, says with a measure of pride. "The guy I replaced played in Patsy Cline's band. It was great for me as a musician."

Dickey wasn't about to give up on Blood Feathers, however. So the Arkansas native moved back to Fishtown - where he now works as a cook at indie venue/gastropub Johnny Brenda's. He got Blood Feathers back together with Mills, who's originally from Willow Grove and who had taken a job touring with songwriter Benjy Freree while Dickey was out of town.

The happy result of their reunion is Goodness Gracious, an 11-song set that pools the duo's songwriting strengths. It was again recorded with Stoltzfus at the helm, with tracking done at the home of actor Ethan Hawke (a Dickey family friend) on an island off the coast of Nova Scotia. The band will play a record release show at JB's with BC Camplight on Saturday.

The sweetly tuneful album digs deeper into vernacular American music with swagger and style, evoking Bob Dylan on "Sugar in Bed" and nodding to Bo Diddley on "King Cotton & Little Star." Goodness Gracious is available now on iTunes - as is Blood Feathers' thoroughly charming holiday song, "Christmas Will Help You Feel OK" - and will be the first release on Philebrity Label, the new venture helmed by local blogger Joey Sweeney.

"We talked to other labels like Fat Possum," says Dickey, who also moonlights with Mills in a Tom Petty cover band called the Big Jangle. "But they have 30 bands on their roster. These guys have one band on their roster. All their energy is focused on us. And they have their hands on a lot of people's desktops." The album comes out on vinyl and CD on Feb. 23.

Dickey says there's a simple way to describe what Blood Feathers do, particularly when the six-man outfit gets on stage. "We're an American rock-and-roll band," he says. "We see a lot of value in that." Is that a lost art? "A lot of people say, 'Oh, you guys do throwback music.' I don't see it that way at all. It's like when Drew was touring with Benjy, they played with this band called the Black Hollies. Just an example of a fantastic, dynamo band. Just kick-ass. When you see something like that live, you get it."