Richmond Fontaine – We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River

Willy Vlautin just might be the best songwriter in America that no one knows. His latest album as the frontman of Richmond Fontaine, We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River, is the band’s ninth and is their best to date. Richmond Fontaine’s dark, dusty and barren Americana is the perfect canvas for Vllautin’s almost too true to life tales of despair, but sounds much more of the desert Southwest than the bands home of Portland, Oregon. Vlautin is a published novelist his lyrical vignettes are captivating even if mostly devoid of melody. We Used To Think… is full of bleak and hopeless stories of disappointment and it cuts to the bone while the band delivers a desolate musical accompaniment that’s filled with pedal steel, mariachi trumpets, and dark atmospheric country tones. However, it isn’t all depressing doom and gloom for Richmond Fontaine as they wade through these fourteen songs. Even though almost everything on We Used To Think… is great, when the band pulls it all together and injects a little more lively melody into the songs (as on “You Can’t Move Back Here”) the results are nothing short of brilliant. RIYL: American Music Club, Calexico, Lowlights, etc…

MP3:
Richmond Fontaine - You Can Move Back Here
Richmond Fontaine - A Letter To The Patron Saint Of Nurses