'All it does here is rain' croons Willy Vlautin in a typically forsaken tone on 'The Meeting on the Logging Road', a track taken from his forthcoming Richmond Fontaine album, 'High Country'.
Desperation in both literature and music have always been pivotal in the desolate themes of Vlautin's work. 'The Motel Life' and 'Northline', two classically barren Americana novels by the wordsmith, are both recklessly forlorn tales of suffering attributed by the burden of addiction and bludgeoned pride. They ache and they crave acceptance. They desire balance and they delineate images of lower class America and its enduring struggle through a wasteland of urban decay, torn families and broken needles.
The importance of Vlautin's work lies in his facility to expose this abandoned side of America, the evil twin that Hollywood has shackled to the abyss. The people we hear in his songs and read in his written words are lonely and miserable. They are ruined and they are lost.
'I need help', a voice cries on 'Claude Murray's Breakdown' before 'The Eagles Lodge' begins in Oberst-like simplicity and swells into a sonic undergrowth of discontent. The surge of up-heaving gloom that begins to develop on this track cements a theme of versatility throughout this record that morphs from acoustic country simplicity to Marlboro-rock. 'Lost In The Trees' and 'The Chainsaw Sea' both advance with comparable barks of Reckless Kelly and Rich Hopkins, fearfully clinging to the ghosts of rock and roll. 'Everyone was tripping except me', snarls Vlatuin before shaky bass lines continue to ramble on, 'heaven was listening to a mix tape of Judas Priest', he continues.
'Inventory' is another narrative of alienation told through a female voice which fails to numb the heartache of this trailer park demise. Its sweet Raitt-like chatter accompanies the theme of hopelessness and unavoidable peril as financial weights and eventually, the collapse of human life, go unnoticed as America goes about its business and the insignificant reach their inevitable passing.
This album, after the first listen, then shows its teeth under the light of loss. It's a concept album built upon a tale of love and madness in a small logging community. A gothic country ballad stretched upon the stark plains of neglected America, this is one of Fontaine's darkest efforts to date.
There are a number of destitute entries in this album that bare their solemn heart in between songs. They sit woefully beside the dusty country and the coughing rock comfortably because they are one and the same. The fallen hope of these spouting accounts are as meaningful as the songs. They provide a basis for loss but no answer to it. Richmond Fontaine don't have an obsession with the harsh concept of failure that's omnipresent in their albums and Vlatuin's books, they simply believe in telling these stories because they're as important as righteous depictions of cosmic triumph. Damaged souls and broken homes construct as much as society as the success of an individual, if not more. Why should victories only pout their smug grins upon the face of idealistic rock and roll? We will not learn from our accomplishments we will only enjoy them. We build from our mistakes and we grow from our misfortune. The desperate, as Richmond Fontaine expose, often paint a bleaker yet more veritable picture of life because ultimately, they have survived.
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