Album Review: The Delines, The Imperial

Hard to doubt the pedigree of a band that features ex-members of the late lamented Richmond Fontaine and a Decemberist, and one listen to the first couple of bars of opener ‘Cheer Up Charley’ with its gentle country soul intro giving way to Amy Boone’s laid-back Dusty Springfield by way of Shelby Lynne purr is enough to confirm it.

Mind you, fate did its damndest to get in the way of this follow up to 2014’s highly lauded Colfax. Boone was hit by a car which smashed both her legs to pieces and resulted in three years of painful treatment to literally get her back on her feet. Thankfully, for us and them, the band held fast because The Imperial – a lot of which had been completed before the accident - is worth the wait.

Songwriter Willy Vlautin’s novelist eye/ear – Northline is highly recommended - is very much in evidence, whether it be dock worker Charley pining for his departed wife, the sister who succumbs to bad habits in the title track, the row in the car park of Walgreen’s, the horses that never win, or Eddie & Polly’s love story. His writing is matched by the band’s perfectly understated and sympathetic playing, from the mournful horns in ‘Where Are You Sonny?’ to the quiet piano break in ‘The Imperial’ to the magisterial, imperial even, ballad ‘Let’s Be Us Again’. Think of the playing the buoys up your favourite soul records, from Stax to Al Green, and you’re on the right track. If ‘Calling In’ or ‘The Oil Rigs At Night’ from the first album were your bag, then you’re laughing.

On top of it all is Boone’s voice, which Vlautin claims to have fallen in love with as soon as he heard it, and you can hear why. A warm hug of a record.