Richmond Fontaine
Don’t Skip Out on Me

4.0
excellent

Review

by DoofusWainwright USER (99 Reviews)
February 16th, 2018 | 28 replies

Release Date: 2018 | Tracklist

Review Summary: A New Canvas

Mark this down as an unexpected return, Richmond Fontaine were meant to be all done and desert dusted after the 2016 release of ‘You Can’t Go Back if There’s Nothing to Go Back To’ struck the absolute perfect farewell note. Instead they’re (sort of) back to provide a soundtrack to chief song writer Vlautin’s latest novel, a tale of an amateur boxer with big dreams, which shares its title with this release. Willy’s carefully chosen words have always been the main draw with this band, only here they finally find themselves divorced from music entirely and instead placed within the pages of a novel...so the idea being that, if all goes to plan, they’ll be planted in the reader’s head whenever they reach for this accompanying album.

Listening to this release without the benefit of already knowing the story and characters of ‘Don’t Skip Out on Me’ means any existing Fontaine fan will likely remember snippets of previous Vlautin tales (in particular see ‘The Pull’, a heart wrenching account of an amateur boxer turning pro) that they can mix in with their own imaginings, as well as hopefully getting swept up in the evocative atmosphere of the music itself. Thankfully these instrumentals stand up surprisingly well to such scrutiny and hang together as a lyrical story in and of themselves; the tenderness that’s at the heart of all Vlautin’s best writing is still communicated beautifully by these considered compositions.

In particular the album reaches a number of emotional peaks; firstly on the twin mood compare and contrast piece ‘Dream of the City and the City Itself’; then later on the breakneck and constantly building ‘The Fight with Raymundo Figueroa’; before the mournful finale ‘Back of the Pickup’ lowers the tattered curtain. As you’d expect with a soundtrack, often short mood pieces are used to patch together the longer tracks to make for a smooth trail, and this band seem particularly adept at judging where and when to use them. Sure, Richmond Fontaine albums have always paid close attention to track flow (see ‘Post to Wire’s spoken word interludes for a prime example) but this soundtrack might just be a pinnacle of sorts in this particular regard.

Upon hearing the man was releasing a new novel with accompanying soundtrack, Vlautin fans could be forgiven for rating their anticipation level as 90% for the book and 10% for the ‘bonus’ music. Well, I’ll be damned if those folk might not just be in for a pleasant surprise.

Recent reviews by this author
Stuart A. Staples Arrhythmia	Evil Blizzard The Worst Show on Earth
Eleanor Friedberger Rebound	Kanye West ye
Paddy Hanna Frankly, I Mutate	Tom Middleton Sleep Better