Richmond Fontaine - You Can't Go Back If There Is Nothing To Go Back To (RSD)
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RICHMOND FONTAINE: YOU CAN’T GO BACK IF THERE’S NOTHING TO GO BACK TO (RSD YELLOW, 500 COPIES)
It’s been five years and another Willy Vlautin novel since The High Country, but the highly revered alt-country Portland outfit is back with more hard luck stories, again produced by John Morgan Askew and with Vlautin, drummer Sean Oldham, guitarist Dan Eccles and Paul Brainard on pedal steel now joined by new bassist Freddy Trujillo, replacing Dave Harding who guests on acoustic, with Jenny Conlee from The Decemberists on keyboards. It will, however, be their swansong.
“This record was written for all the guys we know who have hit the wall, are about to hit the wall, or are in the middle of slamming into it,” says Vlautin. “It’s a record about paying the price for the way one’s lived.”
Given the band’s best known for its slow, ruminative style, it’s a surprise to come across the relatively uptempo Let’s Hit One More Place, a let’s have one for the road alt-country number led by snare and organ, and the skittering train time rhythm Two Friends Lost At Sea, the embittered character unconvincingly claiming he doesn’t give a toss if his ex plays his old Armstrong records to her new lover or makes him pancakes in her underwear.
Nevertheless, it’s the swamp of misery where they are most at home, such as on the stripped down, sing-speak raw folksiness of the black hole sucking in the broken lives of the characters in Three Brothers Roll Into Town or the catalogue of urban despair that is I Can’t Black It Out If I Wake Up And Remember.
The finest five and half minutes though are arguably those of the mid-life crisis documented in the brooding, noirish, nihilistic A Night In The City that sends the protagonist out to a strip bar with his equally disillusioned co-worker looking to escape the wreckage his world has become. Finding no salvation, he gets drunk stays out all night, throws up and goes to work in the morning, asking if life has come to nothing but a one night rebellion against the emptiness.
Conjuring thoughts of Tom Waits, the album plays out on the sad, noodling saloon piano accompanied Easy Run, a brief moment of hope that, while you may be surrounded by reminders that it probably won’t, “someday it might happen for you.” It’s the only reason to get out of bed in the morning. That and buying a copy of this CD (VINYL)
Review by Mike Davies
Richmond Fontaine:
Dan Eccles: electric guitar, piano
Sean Oldham: percussion, vocals
Freddy Trujillo: bass, vocals
Willy Vlautin: vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
John Askew: baritone guitar, electric guitar
Paul Brainard: pedal steel, trumpet
Jenny Conlee-Drizos: keyboards
Dave Harding: acoustic guitar
Recorded and mixed by John Morgan Askew
Assistant engineer: Tim Shrout
Recorded at Flora Recording and Playback, and Scenic Burrows
Mixed at Scenic Burrows
Produced by John Morgan Askew
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