Over the course of a half-decade and three albums, Richmond Fontaine has established itself as one of the better bands in the Northwest. When they expanded from a Buffalo Tom-esque trio by incorporating the considerable pedal steel and mandolin talents of Paul Brainard, the group broadened the countrified range of their sound without abandoning their garage-punk roots.
All of which sounds somewhat similar to the development of Uncle Tupelo, and the obvious observation that singer Willy Vlautin’s voice shares a certain timbre with that of Jay Farrar has led some to write Richmond Fontaine off as a Tupelo clone. Yet it doesn’t take much digging beneath the surface to find the fallacy in that judgment. As a wordsmith, Vlautin is completely unlike Farrar; rather than relying on oblique imagery and geographic sketches, Vlautin takes a straightforward, storytelling approach to his songwriting.
Yet what sets Vlautin apart is also Richmond Fontaine’s downfall. Musically, there’s plenty of richness in the overall tone and feel of Lost Son, but when it comes to marrying that music to the lyrics, rarely is the match made seamlessly. Granted, those lyrics are sometimes quite moving — nowhere more so than on “Fifteen Year Old Kid In Nogales, Mexico”, a harrowing tale of a youth’s border misadventures. Yet while Vlautin’s rhythmic acoustic guitar strums and Brainard’s weeping pedal steel runs waltz beautifully in time with each other, the words are out-of-step with the music.
Ultimately, Vlautin isn’t so much crafting songs as he is writing short-stories and setting them amidst a sonic backdrop. That’s a seemingly subtle yet vital difference, and it has thwarted Richmond Fontaine’s records from remaining in the memory long after they’ve left the stereo
