The Delines
Colfax

Release Date: 2014 | Tracklist

Willy Vlautin has been writing and performing as frontman of Richmond Fontaine since 1994, releasing ten alt-country albums crammed full of his signature tales and vignettes of everyday hardship. It's been an impressive run and the band should be applauded for keeping their standards so high throughout a long and reasonably prolific recording career; at this stage no one would begrudge Vlautin for keeping on keeping on, releasing yet another RF album and adding to the band's already impressive discography. This isn't the option he's chosen this time and if anything his ambition appears to have started accelerating recently; up to this point this has been most obviously reflected by the increased complexity and scope of his novels, but with the arrival of The Delines we now see it manifested through his music.

Vlautin's latest novel 'The Free' showed he has a real talent for writing at length from a female perspective and this translates brilliantly across the eleven tacks here, the songs working like short stories with his new muse Amy Boone singing from the perspective of a different troubled character in each. Willy's no-nonsense minimalist lyrics, preoccupied with the lives of working class people, have been compared to the work of Raymond Carver; he shares a talent for fleshing out snapshots of everyday lives with economical efficiency and a near total avoidance of forced sentimentality. Whether Boone is taking on the part of the unmarried middle-aged woman trying to escape to a new life on 'Stateline', the teenaged tearaway on 'I Won't Slip Up' or the despairing wife reaching the end of her patience on 'The Oil Rigs at Night' both the vocal performance and the words she's delivering remain utterly convincing.

In addition to providing fresh subject matter The Delines also present new musical opportunities; Vlautin would be the first to admit that Boone's voice is far more flexible and elegant than his own limited fragile croak, her range and the sultry timbre of her hushed vocals enabling 'Colfax' to adopt a nocturnal country soul aesthetic that would have been next to impossible for Richmond Fontaine to approximate. A perfect late night listen, whether having a nightcap or tucked in bed this album will work its magic, expertly treading the line between background music and engrossing storytelling. Always a safe choice to put on after a hard day as 'Colfax' is far too sad and reflective to replace Barry White or Al Green as your go-to make out listen, instead the smooth pedal steel of opener 'Calling In' and the sublime dreamlike textures of 'Flight 31' make for a soothing and strangely comforting listen.

While I'd never argue 'Colfax' was one of my favourite ten albums of 2014 I'm certain it was one of my top ten most frequently played releases of the year; the sort of album that creeps up on you, steadily growing into a hard to resist listening option for a particular mood and time. Whether they prove to be a one-off or an ongoing concern is unclear but the strength of 'Colfax' hints that if Vlautin were to tighten up his songwriting further still, perhaps adding some variety by joining Boone on a duet or two, there's the potential for a future classic from The Delines.

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3.5 great

Rank: #0 for 2014