Peak pleasure from the past, darker and sparklier than ever.

Release Date : 19th September 2025

Label : Decor Records

Format : Vinyl / CD / Digital

WOT? MORE NEW?

What, more new from the Delines and the prolific pen of Willy Vlautin, songwriter, novelist and all round good egg? Not exactly, but certainly new, or newish maybe, to you or to me. A swift recap in that the Delines are the vehicle that the onetime Richmond Fontaine frontman set up, after putting that iconic band to bed. With Vlautin taking a more peripheral role on stage, as guitarist in the band, they have a tally of 5 releases behind them, with Mr. Luck And Ms. Doom going down well here, earlier this year. Vlautin is the principal songwriter of the band, with a penchant for vignettes around the underbelly of midwestern low life.

Scenic Sessions dates from 2015, originally, but you would have had to caught the band on their European tour of that year to pick it up, from the merch desk, or have subscribed to it from the band’s website. It certainly passed me by, it marking the then state of the band, shortly ahead the car accident that put singer, Amy Boone, out of action for a couple of years. (It was Boone and her voice that had been the initial spark to Vlautin setting up the band and to continue to write songs, and so she remains.) And it is grand to have it again available.

THE EPITOME OF DISCREET

Instantly, as needle hits groove etc, it is unmistakably one of two things. One is the sort of vintage 60s Southern Soul, pumped out by Dan Penn and his cronies in the 60’s and 70’s, the other being the Delines, such is Vlautin’s grip of the micro-climate. Cool Your Jets wafts in on the classic template of steady as you go bass and drums, measured guitar, smooth organ and nightclub piano, and, even before Boone opens her mouth, you are already nodding and smiling, drawing it all in. Of course, as she does, it is even better. Sean Oldham displays more restraint with his play than any drummer I can think of, the beat carried as much by the gaps as the strikes, whilst Freddie Trujillo’s bass is the epitome of discreet, each as potent in the mix as their bandmates.

I’m Just A Ghost maintains the woozy Midnight Train/Let’s Stay Together mood, Cory Gray adding the classic sacred profanity of dual keyboards, a luxurious bed for the smoke and promise of Boone’s sweltering voice, as she sucks all the oxygen from the room. Sumptuous and exhausting, needing the looser commerciality of Gold Dreaming to give some deserved respite. Gray goes the full Spencer Oldham for this one, his piano tinkling up and down and around, adding an auditory necklace for Boone to wear.

TAKING THE NIGHT BUS

Slowing things riiiiiiiiiiight down, Night Bus takes both time to start, and none to stop, a sound bite from late at night. Finishing before any vocals can start, is it a line in the future sand perhaps, or just a necessary connection? Either way, the lightness of the song before is extinguished. as Friday Night mines once more the terroir in which Vlautin works best, the interface between anticipation and disappointment. Moody keys swirl and punctuate a spoken piece, as Trujillo adds the low notes of a sonic boom, Oldham tip tapping away patiently. Boone is intoning instructions, probably on the phone, to her lover. Her mundane dialogue, without any saying or reveal, just screams he won’t be coming home any time soon, and it is exquisite.

CINEMATIC FEEL

Saloon Six perhaps takes us to where he is, as a piano player vies with random background noise and chatter, the notes becoming increasingly distorted and delayed. The temptation is then to try and spread further an unfolding screenplay, such is the cinematic feel of any Delines album, so it is hard to say whether Sirens In The Night is the next step along, Boone now the observer rather than the woman scorned. A bittersweet song of observation, it accepts the situation with more resignation than regret. There has been little mention of Vlautin’s guitar so far, but he here adds some high moans into the mix, complementing the sympathetic supporting structures he has been providing throughout. He is very much more than the words and music man, although I see, from the credits, that album producer, John Askew, was adding occasional extra baritone guitar, with Tucker Jackson, then still a band member, on pedal steel.

A rare non Vlautin composition follows, he tending toward all the writing for the band, instrumentals aside. Boone sings and strums guitar for her song, I Wasn’t Looking, which, despite being little more than an unaccompanied demo, slots just perfectly in, alongside the more polished pathos elsewhere. In fact, if anything, the album benefits from the lonely spectre the song portrays. (This prompts a quick search of whether she has written anything else for the band, and she hasn’t. Maybe to come?) Another brief instrumental interlude, The Piano Player Always Drinks Free, is next, another short update, perhaps, from Saloon Six. Both, as with Night Bus, are Gray composition/credits.

A SURPRISE COVER

The surprise on the album is the closer, a cover. Their debut, Colfax, included a Randy Newman song, but it isn’t something that happens often in Vlautin’s catalogue. The song is Mark Linkous’s Sunshine, one of bleaker moments in the troubled Sparklehorse man’s repertoire, not that many were bright. To be fair, the Sparklehorse version is a little more hopeful than this iteration, the funereal organ here contriving to slow the pace, with the clarity of Boone’s delivery underlining the aspirational aspects of the song. Jackson’s steel is also an obvious and key component, this time, adding a further pull to the gravity. It is utterly gorgeous, the coda playing out with Gray’s piano dropping tears over the fading arrangement. Linkous was no longer with us, at the time of this album being first available; he took his own life 5 years earlier. As such, I can’t think of a better eulogy, such is the beauty of the rendition.

It is hard to fathom this set arose from a studio booked to cut a single, Vlautin bringing in less than a handful of pre-prepared songs, deciding, on the hoof, to then see what might happen. Half-formed ideas evolved into further songs almost before they were finished, and, with the cover, the instrumentals and Boone’s own song, as Vlautin later said: “Suddenly we had a record.” Covers and instrumentals often evoke filler, but not here, definitely not here, and this is a record we all now can have.

Can I be forgiven for showcasing the Linkous cover, unofficial video or otherwise?

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