Track Listing

1. The Warehouse Life
2. Welhorn Yards
3. Black Road
4. Incident at Conklin Creek
5. Disappeared
6. Casino Lights
7. Exit 194B
8. Laramie, Wyoming
9. The Janitor
10. Don�t Look Back and It Won�t Hurt
11. Making It Back

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #152372 in Music
• Brand: Union
• Released on: 2005-08-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
The follow-up to last year's highly acclaimed "Post To Wire" is a quiet departure from the raucous, visceral send-ups that have made these Portland-based rockers a band to watch. Written at the Fitzgerald Casino in chief songwriter Willy Vlautin's hometown of Reno, this album is a stark collection of songs about the people who live in the shadows of a casino town. It contains the most vivid and compelling songs the band has written to date. It debuted at #13 on the UK Indie Chart in May, and Richmond Fontaine are again experiencing the kind of praise rarely bestowed on any artist.

Q Magazine
"The most beautiful sad album of the year"

Uncut - Five Stars - Album Of The Month, June 2005
"'The Fitzgerald' is mind-blowing"

Customer Reviews

A FLAT OUT MASTERPIECE
Desolation of the heart with all the painful details illuminated, haunting minimalistic melodies, these are almost more short story than song.....one gets the feeling that this is what Springsteen was going for with "Nebraska", the difference being that Springsteen did it through metaphor and imagination whereas Richmond Fontaine feels like they lived it.....in short this makes "Nebraska" seem like the Backstreet Boys....once it gets a hold of you, this album doesn't let go......

Haunting
The Fitzgerald is a collection of haunting yet beautiful songs that portray life at some of it's lowest and bleakest moments. The chilling vocals make you personally feel the characters desperation. Right at that moment when it seems that all is lost, it becomes apparent that there may be hope. Hope is all that desperate people have. Sounds best when listened to in the early hours of the morning when the mind starts to wander and you can't quite tell what's real and when you are dreaming. Fans of Bonnie "Prince" Billy or Townes Van Zandt should love this album.

Stark beauty
I can't fathom how it's possible that no one has yet reviewed this album. For me, it's easily one of the top 2-3 discs of 2005. A series of portraits of deperation - people living lives haunted by ghosts, in and around the casino town of Reno. Unlike RF's previous albums, there's no pedal steel here, but the musicians do such a wonderful job of offsetting Willy Vlautin's vocals with small touches - the acoustic guitar accompaniment on "Welhorn Yards", the brushes and judicious use of strings on "Disappeared" just to name two. It's an immensely moving album that may draw comparisons to Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska", but I feel that over the long run I may love this one even more than the Boss' masterwork.