By: Chris Ball
Richmond Fontaine | website | facebook | soundcloud |
Released on March 4, 2016 via Decor
So we seem to have reached the final chapter in the story of Richmond Fontaine, the band led by one of Americana’s foremost men of letters, Willy Vlautin. Willy is now a prize-winning novelist, something he may now pursue full-time, and it looked like 2011’s slightly underwhelming The High Country might be the bands swan song. However, despite the band scattering after that albums’ release it seems Vlautin and co had unfinished business, both in terms of music and the narratives they have created. Indeed, there’s a theme of returning to places and people in many of these songs, with the fleapit hotel The Fitzgerald getting a mention (the title of their 2005 album) and even a casual admirer like me can spot possible previous characters cropping up again – I’m pretty sure a family from the Thirteen Cities album feature. If you know Richmond Fontaine’s modus operandi, though, you’ll know these are not happy returns…
”It aint no use, oh, it aint no use” – So begins ‘Wake Up Ray’ the first song proper on You Can’t…’ a tale of a failed marriage which uses imagery of a pet bird lost in a snow storm to symbolise the disturbing breakdown of a relationship. It’s unusually poetic for Vlautin, normally unflinchingly bleak and spare in his descriptions of lives and loves on the brink of despair. It’s fair to say that his lyrics make Morrissey seem like Mika, a trait that has sometimes moved the bands songs into the world of misery porn, in danger of becoming a cliché of themselves. I cannot listen to the 2005 album The Fitzgerald at all, such is it’s hushed, unrelenting suffering. Some Richmond Fontaine songs are so finite, the appalling fates of the characters relayed with such clarity that repeated listens seem like an act of sado-masochism. There are chinks of light, occasionally, and several of the songs here do hold glimmers of hope for the protagonists, although it’s all relative and it’s telling that one of the greatest and most cheery songs in their canon is called ‘Barely Losing’!
As a singer Vlautin is somewhat limited, and most of the bands songs now are more like short stories with him as a grim narrator soundtracked by subtle slide guitar and keys, but ‘Wake Up Ray’ holds another couple of small surprises in that on it Vlautin sounds tipsy, and he actually inhabits the character rather than narrating in his flat, overstretched croak. Plus the warm surge of keys during the song give hints of a British influence, namely The Faces, on this most American of bands whose chief influences through their career, from Buffalo Tom and Dinosaur Jr. on their early records, to Springsteen, Steinbeck and Bukowski on recent ones have all been utterly of their homeland.
Those chinks of light I mentioned are present in the car wreck relationship of ‘Two Friends Lost at Sea’ – there’s still warmth and hope – ‘I aint drifting that bad any more, can’t you see’ croons Vlautin as the lovely mellow horns soothe away the wrongs. And on ‘Let’s Hit One More Place’ the pain is at least delayed till the next day – the fun is still happening for these incorrigible drunks. They may be out of control, but are happy in the moment, a rarity in Richmond Fontaine’s world.
My review so far may have led you to believe that I’m averse to the bands darkest moments, but when they get it right, they are utterly masterful. ‘A Night in the City’ is one of the most devastating songs they’ve ever produced for its simple, minor key tragedy. Less grimly morbid than most of their songs it’s power lies in its complete believability and the bitter honesty of the middle aged working man, out with a work buddy on a rare night away from the disappointments of his home life – “a one night rebellion that just ends up being a drag”. As the lap steel cries and the melody swells like a hot eruption of tears the song ends as the most perfect depiction of frustration imaginable. It kills me every time.
‘I Got Off The Bus’, from which the album takes its’ title, and ‘I Can’t Black It Out If I Wake Up And Remember’ are also both powerful, both about gaining no comfort from being in the supposedly familiar surrounds of your hometown. In the former, over an almost poppy, Wilco-esque melody a young man returns to find his town alien and unfriendly, no one there to greet him or even willing to give him the time of day as he ends up alone, drinking whiskey in a cinema. In the latter we go on a tour with a guy who finds bad memories on every corner, everything burned out or demolished, everyone dead or gone.
In a genre perhaps blessed with more great songwriters than any other, Willy Vlautin is still a rare and impressive talent and Richmond Fontaine have produced yet another set of memorable, deeply human songs. At times the pain and suffering contained within are almost unbearable, but the underlying message they leave is summed up well by fans of the band and fellow travellers, Drive By Truckers on their song ‘World of Hurt’
”No, it’s a wonderful world
If you can put aside the sadness
And hang on to every ounce of beauty upon you
Better take the time to know it
If you feel anything at all…”
