2005’s The Fitzgerald was a highly accomplished, reductive
masterpiece yet could have been something of a creative cul-de-sac. So for 2007’s Thirteen Cities they enlisted
the help of Calexico, Howe Gelb and brought Paul Brainard’s steel guitar from
out of purgatory to produce a more widescreen sound. The album is something of a concept album, on
the subject of Thirteen Cities, but Willy Vlautin’s downbeat writing is as
bleak as ever.
Musically, the palette is widened to include trumpets, and
after moody scene setter Intro/The Border, these trumpets clash spectacularly
with Vlautin’s croaky vocals, like Richmond Fontexico, and the track
fails. Thankfully the rest of the album
is way better. $87 and a Guilty
Conscience That Gets Worse The Longer I Go is a gentle, moody song with a
slight alt-country feel. In a similar,
pleasant vein are Westward Ho and Capsized.
There are downbeat classics aplenty here, from the restless strum of I
Fell Into Painting Houses In Phoenix, Arizona to the mournful trumpets of The
Kid from Belmont Street.
Some of the most evocative tracks here are instrumentals, El
Tiradito and Ballad of Dan Fanta conjure up lonesome prairie scenes. Other tracks are very sparse, such as the
almost spoken St Ides, Parked Cars, And Other Peoples Homes, harrowing tale The
Disappearance of Ray Norton and the tinkling, cast-adrift piano of Lost In This
World. The fullest band performance here
is on penultimate track Four Walls, which could have come off Winnemucca or
Post to Wire.
It’s not Richmond Fontaine’s best collection of songs but
it’s a pretty representative album, if slightly more ‘Americana’ than usual.
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