Wednesday 02/06/04 Richmond Fontaine @ Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

Keeping track of all the hot new alt.country bands coming out on a weekly basis is getting to be a full time occupation. Unless you’re truly dedicated to the task, negotiating your way through the piles of new Americana records flooding the market has become overwhelming. The temptation in these circumstances is to stick to the old reliable favourites, but what with Lambchop putting out patchy double-albums and Johnny Cash departed to the Grand Ole Opry in the sky, tried and tested sources are getting fewer and farther between. Time, then, to take a chance on something new.

Of course, Richmond Fontaine aren’t really new at all. They’ve been kicking around Portland, Oregon for a good ten years now, barely making a splash. But with the release of their fifth album, 'Post To Wire', people are beginning to sit up and take notice. So what can one more gang of thirty-odd year olds in plaid bring to the barbecue? The problem is, nothing much that really is new.

Don’t think this means that Richmond Fontaine don’t do their thing well.  There’s plenty of poetry in Willy Vlautin’s seedy tales of life spinning out of control, and the band play with a rock’n’roll vigour on songs like set highlight 'Whiskey, Painkillers and Speed', which avoids the torpid misery-wallowing rife in more indulgent alt.country music. But if you’ve ever heard The Long Ryders, X, Green on Red, or The Replacements, then you’ve heard all Richmond Fontaine have to say already. In a marketplace already full to bursting with product, bands really have to be coming up with different approaches to traditional content, in order to stand out from the pack. Richmond Fontaine, though occasionally appealing in a Springsteen-gone-punk sort of way, just haven’t got that mystery X-factor (awful alt.country pun entirely intended).