The Delines – fending off humbuggery with their Christmas single.

Release Date: 7th December 2023

Label: Decor Records/El Cortez Records

Format: Vinyl / digital

This just in, and just the job to fend off the mounting tides of humbuggery normally induced by “The Christmas Single”, a concept so over-egg(nog)ged as to even tarnish the memory of the few true olden and golden of the genre. The Delines are the Portland, Oregon band, who gift the struggling underbelly of the US with a poetic substance, very much in the style of a Charles Bukowski crossed with a dollop of William Faulkner. Of course, anyone familiar with the writing of Willy Vlautin will know this, as he, along with being a celebrated writer, is also the guitarist and lyricist of the band, reprising the role he took in his earlier band, Richmond Fontaine, for whom he also sang.

So is this a song of Christmas cheer? You be the arbiter of that, but is would come as a surprise if it were. I guess the most obvious reference might be Tom Waits’ Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis, not least as it is largely spoken, drawled really, rather than sung, almost as in the near sprechgesung cover by Neko Case. Indeed, Amy Boone has a similarly bourbon and honey-hued vocal timbre. All the good ol’ Christmas tropes are there: sexual shenanigans, fighting, swearing and unpleasant elders. (So far, so Robert Earl Keen or, for other US holidays, James McMurtry.)

It starts with a balmy guitar motif, paired with shimmers of electric piano, over brushed drums, with Boone intoning the tale. Looking to be live in the studio, the band are appropriately bedecked in Wintery garments, glitter and glitz around them, Boone sipping something fiery, a gin fizz, no doubt. A good description follows of the horror of reluctant Christmas family get-togethers, as the rellies from Hell converge. As the brass sweeps in with a mellow touch, the vista gets progressively Dante-esque, had his inferno been in Albuquerque or somesuch. Atlantis, even, as Atlantis actually is a city in America, in Palm Beach County, Florida, my every day’s a school day momento for today. It is all gloriously bleak. A perfect antidote to all the ho, ho, ho elsewhere.

Have a cool yule, y’all!

The Delines online: Website / Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram

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