Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Showing posts with label Richmond Fontaine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richmond Fontaine. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Thursday, May 23, 2024
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Willy Vlautin – The Horse – Book Review
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2024/05/07/willy-vlautin-the-horse-book-review/ Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Friday, December 16, 2016
Best Albums of 2016 – Killian Laher
Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2016/12/16/best-albums-of-2016-killian-laher/
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Friday, March 25, 2016
Monday, January 4, 2016
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Highlights for 2015
It's looking quiet enough so far in 2015. The Juliana Hatfield Three have reunited and are releasing the follow up to 1993's Become What You Are on 17th Feb and based on the first track to emerge If I Could, it will be a summery janglefest. Dakota Suite are collaborating with Quentin Sirjacq for The Indestructibility of the Already Felled which should appear early in 2015. If it's noise you're looking for there's a choice between A Place To Bury Strangers' fourth album Transfixiation, out 17th Feb or The Soft Moon's third album Deeper, out 31st March.
Scott Weiland is recording a rock album with The Wildabouts. Entitled Blaster, it should be out in March. Elsewhere, Richmond Fontaine and And So I Watch You From Afar have new albums expected. On the more outlandish scale of the spectrum, Mark Kozelek is working with industrial band Godflesh, and maybe My Bloody Valentine will release an EP??
There'll surely be more than this next year...
There'll surely be more than this next year...
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – Thirteen Cities
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.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – The Fitzgerald
After the
critical success of Post to Wire, Richmond Fontaine took a typically
idiosyncratic step for 1995’s follow-up The Fitzgerald. They stripped out most of the elements that
contributed to Post to Wire’s success. So gone are all the uptempo songs, most of the electric guitars and above
all, Paul Brainard’s steel guitar.
Replacing
these is a series of stripped down, spare songs, which are almost all bleak as
f**k. Second track, The Welhorn Yards is
a prime example of this, a beautiful melody picked out by a bone-dry guitar and
Willy Vlautin’s harrowing lyrical imagery “I fell into the uneasiest of sleeps,
the worst nightmares of sleeps. A madman
came after me, his hair was on fire, his eyes were bleeding and he said he was
gonna kill me.” Amazingly this isn’t
merely a depressing song, but a pared-down gem.
It’s followed
by the slightly more propulsive, though no less bleak Black Road, a desperate tale
of “the alcoholics and the ruined and the framed”, and some highly effective
backing vocals. It’s difficult for the
band to maintain this level of intensity over the whole album, though they make
a fair fist of it on the piano-enhanced The Incident at Conklin Creek. In the main, guitars are plucked rather than
strummed, drums are brushed rather than beaten.
If anything
can be called upbeat here, it’s two tracks, the Tex-Mex strum of Exit 194B and nervous
strums of Don’t Look and It Won’t Hurt, the latter reminiscent of some of the
material on Winnemucca. At times the
sparseness of the material shows up some of the band’s failings, such as
Vlautin’s vocals (on Laramie, Wyoming) and some underwritten songs (The
Janitor).
But these are
minor complaints. This album is about
telling a story and creating a mood, and dealing with that. The whole thing is brought together by the
final track, the gorgeously sparse three minutes of Making It Back. It’s Willy Vlautin alone with his guitar and
bottles at 3am with only the Pogues to keep him company (“Summer in Siam plays
on repeat again, we never get sick of it”).
Alone that is, except for his love (“now that I’m in your arms again…
there’s no one else I can talk to”). The
track finishes with a beautifully picked guitar coda, almost reminiscent of The
Smiths’ Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want.
After the
track finishes we’re left with only silence.
There’s nothing more can be said.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – Lost Son
Richmond
Fontaine’s third album Lost Son, released in 1999, is one of their bleakest
works. There is no frivolity here, the
music rages and rages through tracks like Saviour of Time, Ft. Lewis and Mule. The band come on much less like a country
band, and much more like a speed-punk band.
Guitars are pummelled, drums are pounded and Willy Vlautin clings on for
dear life, telling his bleak stories.
It’s an easier
listen when the music calms down a notch or two on Cascade, and on Contrails and
later Four Hours Out we even get steel guitar from Paul Brainard. Girl In A House In Felony Flats is dirge-like,
crawling along on guttural guitars, yet it’s strangely compelling. However few of the tunes are overly engaging.
Finally we get
the devastating Hope & Repair, which manages to take the story into an even
darker place, where a man takes in a prostitute only to see the whole thing end
in blood and complete despair.
It’s
exhausting to listen to and unremittingly bleak, not an ideal starting point
for this band.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Album Review: Richmond Fontaine - Miles From
Richmond Fontaine’s second album, released in 1997 has fewer distinct tracks than their debut, and a more pronounced country feel, with the addition of Paul Brainard’s steel guitar.
Opening track Trembling Leaves is a midtempo electric strum in the vein of the material on Safety, while Give Me Time is an optimistic sounding tune. You can hear early signs of how the band would develop on albums like Post to Wire on this one, with Willy Vlautin’s odd chorus of “give me boiler makers, give me time.”
The title track is a somewhat darker, brooding affair but in truth none of the lyrics indicate that the protagonists are having anything other than a rough time. Instrumental Grandview comes as something of a relief, and a pause for breath, giving Brainard’s wonderfully evocative steel guitar a chance to take centre stage.
Elsewhere, the hesitant Collapse stops and starts uneasily before the mood is lightened with the breezy Lemonheads-style Calm. Later tracks like Blinding Sight, White Out and Concussion are a little indistinguishable from each other, though the latter features some fine six-string abuse.
Not sure how this one stands up with Richmond Fontaine’s later albums.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Top 10 albums of 2011
I may regret doing this now, but here goes:
10. Remember Remember – The Quickening
A new name to me and another excellent Scottish album in a good year for Scottish albums.
http://www.meg.ie/remember-remember-the-quickening/
9. Belong – Common Era
Darkly addictive, shoegazing stuff.
http://www.meg.ie/belong-common-era/
8. Anna Calvi
Believe the hype.
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2011/09/album-review-anna-calvi.html
7. Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – Everything’s Getting Older
Marvellously miserable musings.
http://www.meg.ie/aidan-moffat-bill-wells-everything%E2%80%99s-getting-older/
6. Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire
That old clich̩ Рthe return to form.
http://www.meg.ie/ryan-adams-ashes-fire/
5.
Could have been a real failure but wasn’t.
http://www.meg.ie/richmond-fontaine-%E2%80%93-the-high-country/
4. Gillian Welch – The
Her albums don’t come around too often but they are worth waiting for.
http://www.meg.ie/gillian-welch-the-harrow-the-harvest/
3. Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Great title.
http://www.meg.ie/mogwai-hardcore-will-never-die-but-you-will/
2. Bill Callahan – Apocalypse
Someone has to chronicle the apocalypse.
http://www.meg.ie/bill-callahan-apocalypse/
1. Low – C’mon
Terrible title, but a fine album.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – Safety
Richmond Fontaine’s debut album Safety, released in 1996, shows some early promise, which they realized more fully on later work. Listening to it now, it’s not a million miles away from the likes of Whiskeytown.
Opening track Dayton, Ohio is akin to a ramshackle Lemonheads, as are the midtempo strums of Novocaine and Wagonwheel Motel. There are some 100 mile an hour tracks like Harold’s Club, Riverhouse and 1968, which have plenty of punky energy but don’t suit Willy Vlautin and co so well.
They are better when they slow things down, on the acoustic Settle and Safety. White Line Fever is again reminiscent of Whiskeytown, while the aforementioned Novocaine is a fine strum with the refrain of “17 reasons that I can’t explain.”
Later the 96 second Kid Steps Out Into The Road takes a bleak subject matter where this kid “duct-tapes 3 M-80s to his head and lights them” and combines it with a jaunty melody with a wonderful banjo part, concluding that “it’s the luck of the Irish in Reno, Nevada.”
All in all it’s a decent debut, with signs of what the band would become on future albums.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – Post To Wire
Something of a critical, if not commercial breakthrough for Richmond Fontaine, 2004’s Post To Wire certainly made impact in the glossy music monthlies. And with good reason too – it’s probably the most melodic of their albums.
After The Longer You Wait which sets the tone, second track, Barely Losing has a gorgeous guitar and piano combination, topped off by the pleasing groans of Willy Vlautin (“we’re walking on the railroad tracks at 5 in the morning).
Montgomery Park takes a different approach, it’s a ragged, bat out of hell rocker, yet still melodic amid the raging guitars. The songs are punctuated by spoken-word interludes detailing the trials and tribulations of the protagonist Walter, a troublemaker by the sounds of this.
But the real strength of this album is the number of strong tunes contained within. Through and Two Broken Hearts are classic sounding midtempo country-rockers. However, the album is never allowed to get too comfortable before the darkness returns in the towering tale of a siege in Hallway.
Deborah Kelly provides a fine duet on the title track, another bright country-rock tune, and also on the more downbeat Polaroid of the girl looking for her dad who “don’t know where he lives anymore.”
Penultimate track Willamette sees the band unleash their full power as Vlautin rages at a missing brother, referencing their dreams by the aforementioned river. It’s a huge sounding cathartic track, all pounding drums, snarling guitars and an incongruous steel guitar, which miraculously fits into the mix.
The album is a perfect starting point for Richmond Fontaine.
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