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

As Richmond Fontaine reach their eighth album, the quality shows no signs in letting up. The lead and title track is languid and world weary, managing to sound even more brow beaten than Lambchop. Despite this it has a certain self assuredness albeit with a sombre lyrical tone. It’s always upbeat despite sounding downbeat in the worse of times before giving in and being finally broken by a specific incident. The rollicking come back letter of You Can Move Back Here would entice even the most hardy of souls back home, and the gentle slightly Mexican military waltz of The Boyfriends is a tale of a lady’s male companions that pass in the night. It’s another of Willy’s wonderful mini stories in a song. The Pull is a gentle and sombre tale of a poor guy, an alcoholic, then a boxer, who couldn’t cope with things taken away from him, no matter how harmful they were to him. He moves from one thing to the next, a gorgeous twinkling tune charting his undulating, mainly downward progress. Watch Out is a delicate near instrumental, tugging on your heart strings with merely a divine tune and the only words “watch out or your heart will be nothing but scars”. 43 is a rambling and rolling song that sounds like storm clouds gathering, the perfect music for a song about broken lives and broken homes. Lonnie is a staggering and brooding thing about a retch of a man while Ruby & Lou is a mumbly and downbeat thing, maudlin strings tugging on your heart. Past the intricate twinkling instrumental Walking Back To Our Place At 3 A.M. we get to the tumultuous and stormy Two Alone. A Letter To The Patron Saint Of Nurses bring things right down, a spoken word musing on more lives and a fitting end to another great Richmond Fontaine album.

We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River is out now on Decor Records
Richmond Fontaine myspace is here