Richmond Fontaine – We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River
I love Richmond Fontaine, and I didn’t even know this was coming. This is one of the dangers of getting your snout too deep into your inbox and not keeping an eye on news developing in the wider world around you, I guess, but I spotted it eventually.
I’ve reviewed spoken word albums recently – George Pringle and Money Can’t Buy Music – and treated them very much as song-based records, because I didn’t really see what the difference was in the use of the voice, whether or not the lyrics were being sung. In this case, I almost find myself wanting to talk about a song-based album as if it were actually spoken word.
Willy Vlautin is a novelist, which I suppose I am probably allowing to influence my relationship with this record, but it shows through in the approach to the music as well. Several of the songs on this verge on spoken word delivery, and the lovely Letter to the Patron Saint of Nurses actually goes all the way. His lyrical style suits this delivery – unhurried and with a eye for the small details which bring a slowly unfolding story to life.
He certainly doesn’t rush the setting of his scene, which I really like, and the music on a lot of this album is designed to match. Where they have been at various times quite folky, touched on horn-heavy Americana and hit their electric guitars quite hard, in this case the pace of the album is generally not so much slow as unhurried. Even the rock ‘n’ roll songs, which is where this album tends to go when it ups the urgency, have a kind of easy gait, even as the pace picks up.
I think it’s that rock ‘n’ roll style which I don’t much like about some of the music. Generally I really enjoy this, but some of the music is a little bit on the squidgy side – nice enough, but no real edge to it. That doesn’t happen all that often though, and Vlautin’s storytelling is so satisfying that I can’t help but enjoy the album anyway. It may not be my favourite Richmond Fontaine record, but I am definitely enjoying it.
Richmond Fontaine – The Boyfriends
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Richmond Fontaine – A Letter to the Patron Saint of Nurses
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The first track is absolutely fantastic. The second sounds like a crap Lou Reed cover if you ask me. Maybe that’s inaccurate but the talking over guitar sounds tired. Where as The Boyfriends makes me want to dance a little.
Still, I’ll buy it.
dangerously bored…need fives.
I just heard this on radio scotland and it was great (a session it was actually but of songs from this). Shall investigate further.
a wee live session track is posted on my site. have a swatch