Review Summary: Your Mr. Luck is in...prepare to meet your Ms. Doom.
I'm trying to decide if this is the best Delines albums so far, or whether the debut still holds the title; as you can gather it's a close thing, all four Delines albums have kept to a similar formula, so pitting them against each other is perhaps a pointless exercise. The headline news is: this latest Delines album is still up to the usual and well established high standard.
When it comes to songwriter Willy Vlautin's projects there's almost always at least one song included that will hit like a brick to the pit of the stomach in terms of emotional impact, and this time it's the elegantly rambling (and achingly sad) second track 'Her Ponyboy', while a special mention should also go out to the desolate minimalism of 'There's Nothing Down the Highway'. The rest of the material boasts the usual atmospheric flourishes, sharp storytelling lyrics and attractive instrumentation that we've come to expect...without the songs necessarily blowing the listener away individually.
The Delines remain a fantastic nocturnal country soul infused follow up group to the legendary alt country masters Richmond Fontaine and Willy Vlautin certainly deserves a great deal of credit for being the mastermind behind both of these acts.
