Ok enough of the wikipediaishness. I first heard them in 2004 via the local record store owner spinnin their 2002 album Winnemucca for me - I was instantly in love with their sound & Vlautin's lyrics. I could overdo the "cinematic lyrics" description, but it's true - their songs paint such a vivid picture of the American west, the seedy casinos and even seedier hotels, the down at their luck characters so intensely brought to life; reviewers routinely compare them to Raymond Carver for a reason. They should definitely appeal to more people on here, they've got the whole Uncle Tupelo/Replacements All Shook Down vibe going on with the lyrical content of say a Nebraska/Ghost of Tom Joad Springsteen, but that's still selling them short; more than anything they nail the Richmond Fontaine sound down perfect. I'm gonna cheat and post a quote from an Uncut review, cuz it sums up part of their appeal better than I could:
Now you might be thinking "that sounds a little depressing" and well, yeah you might be right, but in the great country music tradition of juxtaposing sad lyrics with an upbeat melody, the songs won't leave you feeling all down in despair. In a genre full of cliched songs sung by generic bands, it only takes one listen to see that RF is the real thing. They also pepper their albums with spoken interludes and instrumentals that only add to the quality of album as a whole; I've heard this tactic be distracting with other bands but they pull it off perfectly. Another trap they avoid is making the same album repeatedly; each album comes off like a collection of short-stories almost in a conceptual-sense, which ain't surprising given the fact that Vlautin is also an accomplished novelist, his first novel "The Motel Life" being an editor's choice in the New York Times and one of the top 25 books of the 2006 by the Washington Post.And so across these albums, there were songs, crisply realised vignettes, if you like, about washed-up losers, hard-drinking hustlers, hapless gamblers, a dying gangster or two, brutalised wives and murdered children, vengeful bookies, grim junkie fuck-ups, suicidal drunks, their lives ruined beyond repair or redemption, set mostly in the great swarming emptiness of an unlit America of bars that never close because no-one ever leaves them, truck-stops, diners, run-down casinos, bus stations, motels where the lonely live and every day look in the mirror and, unrecognisable even to themselves, wonder who it is they’ve become.
OK I realize I've completely neglected to talk about the rest of the band, particularly Paul Brainerd, the band's virtuoso pedal steel player (best this side of Late Night Johnny), mandolinist, piano player, trumpeter, etc etc etc, guitarist Dan Eccles, and the solid rhythm section of Sean Oldham & Dave Harding. I'll just let the music speak for itself:
Definitely check these guys out! They should be especially appealing to DBT fans, they share a lot of the qualities we praise DBT for - any of their albums would be a great introduction (they've yet to make a less than stellar album) but I believe the best "starter" album would be either 2002's Winnemucca or 2004's Post to Wire - but if you're stubborn I'll have a sampler spanning their entire career up here shortly.
If they're ever playing in your area, make sure to check them out - I've only caught them live once (they don't make it down here much) but they're as great live as they are in the studio.
