Most modern alt-country outfits reject atmospheres in favour of meat and potatoes travelogues, literal narratives, truckstop realism. What Richmond Fontaine have in common with Jim White is an ability to contrast traditional songcraft and bar band chops with near ambient sounds.
But Nashville Babylonians needn’t fret. On tracks like ‘Moving Back Home’, ‘St Ides, Parked Cars, And Other People’s Homes’ and the wonderfully named ‘$87 And A Guilty Conscience That Gets Worse The Longer I Go’, Thirteen Cities – the Portland-based band’s seventh studio album – evokes the golden age of the mid-’80s roots rock revivalists like Green On Red and The Long Ryders.
Richmond mainman Willy Vlautin has an obvious but not overbearing Gram Parsons twang to his phrasing, but as was evident in his debut novel The Motel Life, he also has a strong storytelling gene (one suspects ‘Ballad Of Dan Fanta’ has more to do with the Ask The Dust author than a certain soft drink). ‘I Fell Into Painting Houses In Phoenix, Arizona’ and the spoken word ‘The Disappearance Of Ray Norton’ could stand up to any of Bruce’s Tom Joad bordertown parables. Mind you, the presence of certain Calexicans doesn’t hurt either.
But there are also haunting desert airs where producer JD Foster seems to apply the sensibilities of Daniel Lanois or Malcolm Burn, producing a kind of eerie space country. It’s not that much of a stretch to suggest that the keening pedal steel of ‘El Tiradito’, the brooding ‘A Ghost I Became’ and ‘The Kid From Belmont Street’ sound equally as weaned on 4AD as Waylon or Willie.
Thirteen Cities is a lesson in how to craft a No Depression standard that doesn’t sound like a Smithsonian museum piece.