Richmond Fontaine - The High Country

This is Richmond Fontaine’s ninth studio album and if you’ve listened to their previous work you won’t be surprised by its literate pretensions. They are, after all, led by Willy Vlautin, a published novelist whose 2006 debut ‘The Motel Life’ will soon be seen on the big screen.

‘The High Country’ is a similarly cinematic affair. It’s a record of high concepts and overarching narratives, attempting to create a novel/album concept using characters to tell the story of a mechanic and an auto parts store counter girl in a rural logging community.

If that makes the album sound slightly impenetrable, you’d be half right. It’s not a record that can be dipped into - it’s one, if you want to truly appreciate it, which demands to be listened to in its entirety.

The trouble with grand ambitions like these is that the songs must match them. For the most part, on ‘The High Country’, unfortunately they don’t. ‘The Escape’ has music to back up its epic aspirations and ‘The Chainsaw Sea’ is a slowburner whose charm slowly reveals itself, while closer Leaves’ ghostly melodies give the story a compelling finale.

These songs help to weave the narrative together and when it works well you feel like your immersed in the story (guest vocalist Deborah Kelly of The Damnations is particularly adept at adding more to the drama) with each song a different chapter, revealing more and more.

Yet the lack of quality songs leaves holes in the plot. This is a claustrophobic journey, and the snippets of dialogue and radio broadcasts that are supposed to add to the experience sound contrived. At times the whole concept seems forced and the bottom line is the record lacks the songs to make you interested in the story that’s being told.