More well-thumbed vignettes of gothic country noir, seeped in some Southern soul sauce from The Delines.
Release Date: 14th February 2025
Label: Decor Records
Format: CD / vinyl / digital
AWAITING A NEW WILLY
Whilst there are many who always eagerly await a new Willie, the numbers who similarly wait for new Willy are by no means insubstantial. Willy? As in Vlautin, the one-time lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of much loved alt-country band, Richmond Fontaine, releasing a dozen albums, or thereabouts, 1994-2016. Gothic country noir, of the sort the Walkabouts might reject as being too dark, Vlautin had, and still has, the perfect yellow eyes to delineate the soft white underbelly of the American Dream.
Since the end of that group, he has remained no less busy, notching up a credible side-line as a writer of novels, gritty grimoires that squeeze together the styles and substance of the Raymonds Carver and Chandler. But you can’t smother that songwriting itch, with the concomitant launch of ongoing project, The Delines, for whom this is album number 5 or 6, depending on how you count it.
URBAN VIBE
We like The Delines, last heard with this 2023 Christmas single. Rather than the midwest backdrop of dusty desert towns, with searing steel and sundried vocals, The Delines occupy a more urban vibe, of smoggy Southern cities, exuding a smart and smooth glossy sheen over the cracked lives the shabby inhabitants of Vlautin’s acutely observed songs inhabit. This is, in the main, conveyed by the achingly weary vocals of Amy Boone, who lives and breathes the stories gifted her, an epic voice in the mould of Bobbie Gentry.
With two else of the band drawn also from Richmond Fontaine, the rhythm section of Sean Oldham, drums, and Freddy Trujillo, bass, it has become a delight to see the sound evolve, brass becoming ever more prominent, replacing steel, country soul rather than the high lonesome sound of before. This is in no small part to the arrangement skills of 5th member, Cory Gray, who plays keyboards and trumpet. Here, that expression is taken to its furthest current limit, courtesy his lushly sumptuous arrangements for both horns and strings.
HAPPY? SHOCK HORROR!
The album opens with the eponymous title track, a slow burner fuelled by electric piano and bass, ignited by Boone’s vocal, in all of a Me and Mrs Jones shimmer. A brass section kicks discreetly in, it all becoming a luxuriant soak, ahead of belatedly remembering to hone in on the lyrics. And here’s a shock; they’re happy. If by Delines standards, sure, the song seemingly a prompt from Boone to her boss to come up with something against type: “Listen man, you have to write me a straight up love song where no one dies and nothing goes wrong or I’m going to lose my mind.” If this is Vlautin writing to demand, Lord knows what else he may have up his sleeve. With backing vocals worthy of The Pips, and swirly organ, this is a midnight train that needs keeping on track.
That mood seeps into Her Ponyboy, stark piano framing another happier, if ultimately tragic outcome. The classic structure of low twanging guitar, dual keys and a sparse but sure percussion makes for some familiarity, an echo from studios long shut down, when Denny Cordell was at the controls, and the Swampers playing as sharp as a paring knife. The recreation comes the instrumental skills of the group and production mastery of John Morgan Askew. Oh, and that voice, that voice.
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Bittersweetness tends not to linger long in Vlautin Land, with Left Hook Like Frazier just plain bitter. Over a near funky disco beat and a Bacharach style horn arrangement: “If you want to break your broken heart, I’ve got a map for you“, it all unwinds. All the instructions are there, basically choosing the wrong man, with the wrong lifestyle choices and a dodgy track record. And a less dodgy fist, it being one of few songs that reference Smokin’ Joe.
Sitting On The Curb is another slow-burning beauty, an immaculate conception played out for all the pathos that can be derived from witnessing a marriage destruct, through the eyes of the deceived wife. Whether the fire burning down the house is real or metaphorical, it scarcely matters. If you needed to play just one song to convince as to the greatness of this calibre of songmanship, this may well be the one. And, if it isn’t, maybe There’s Nothing Down The Highway is, a bleak and funereal pattern of descending notes, little but stark single piano notes and, later, a doleful wail of trumpet. Boone offers the resigned commentary and it is a song to even challenge Richard Thompson’s End Of The Rainbow as to the depths of despair not just promised, guaranteed.
THE ONLY WAY IS UP
Unable to sink any further into the human condition, the only way now is up, sort of. Don’t Miss The Bus Lorraine is therefore near jaunty, if only by comparison, with more fumes of Bacharach and a slight waft of Shelby Lynne’s Your Lies, particularly as the choral vocal line opens it up. Less a story song, this is the whole damn boxset, with a hefty lyrical punch that mines the irony around being convicted for dope related offences, only to be released into a world where it is legal, yet still strung by being a felon. “A felon ain’t supposed to make it“. Ouch! The Haunting Thoughts shows off the telepathy between Trujillo and Oldham, knowing exactly how much to play, and how little, weaving around the dual keyboards of Gray, themselves swishing in the wake of Boone’s delivery.
I confess I had an immediate issue with Nancy And The Pensacola Pimp, the narrative writ too obvious, too large and in two dimensions, a comic strip rather than the well-thumbed paperback between and beyond the lines. A slow Memphis strut is, for me, likewise an ersatz step. I see and know it is being viewed elsewhere as a highpoint, me clearly a horse for another course. Maureen’s Gone Missing is better by far, a song I can hear a distinct Nancy and Lee influence, the brass and Fender Rhodes that steal the chorus a delight. It is even convincingly catchy, never quite seeing that part the Delines gameplan. It’s a great yarn, too.
AS GOOD AS HAPPY ENDINGS GET
So, too, is JP And Me, a slinky tale which sees, possibly even Maureen getting away with her presumably ill-gotten. We never know, but, where this is as good as happy endings get, perhaps it is. Irrespective, it is likely the same Lorraine, from 5 songs back, who is the subject of the short and doomy Don’t Go Into That House Lorraine, with what sounds like healthy advice, which, yeah, right, she has no chance of following. Not in Deline County, Vlautin Land. A taster for the next volume? Perhaps.
With this album, The Delines are about as far removed, sonically and stylistically, from Richmond Fontaine, as far as can be. The progression, album by album, is distinct and discernible. Yet, courtesy the core subject matter, overt links remain. Here the writer, give or take an occasional twang, feels almost absent, leaving his crack team to harness in all the widescreen majesty of his writing. Gray is little short of genius in his arranging skills, plying just the right template for a full atmospheric immersion, for Trujillo and Oldham, and his own keyboards, none missing a trick. Boone, well, she was just born for this. Triffic!!
Still taking notes? Here’s Left Hook Like Frazier, that’s how you break your broken heart:
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