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 Caught in the Carousel - "There will be music despite everything"
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Richmond Fontaine
The High Country
El Cortez
The High Country is Richmond Fontaine's tenth album. This one tells a story; a sad, sad story about a girl who disappears in a logging town. The album starts out like a novel, and you get pulled in pretty fast just like you would with a good book. Track by track, the story slowly tells itself in different forms, some more abstract than others, some instrumental. In fact, singer Willy Vlautin's vocals don't even show up until the third song. Some of this story is told quietly, some violently, but collectively it does a great job of tearing your heart out. I encourage you to listen to it more than once to get all the chapters into your head. This album is like reading a story with the soundtrack embedded in it, so I guess it's a bit like watching a movie without the visuals. You have to create your own visuals, which is easy though, with what you're provided with here. I've been a fan of this band for a while now, also Willy Vlautin's books, which, like the lyrics on this album, are breathtaking in their simple imagery about flawed people who don't have much, drink too much, and wreck their lives. I've become familiar with the way he writes, a sort of a Raymond Carver with three days beard growth and the shakes when he gets out of bed in the morning. Vlautin's prose, both in his novels and with Richmond Fontaine are like a reliable companion to me; I know we're going somewhere, maybe not the best place, but I keep getting back in the car.
—The Vinyl Princess
www.thevinylprincess.com
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