Having spent a few weeks trying to clear my head of Drone-Doom Metal and the obvious faux-pain that goes with it. I stumbled upon Richmond Fontaine via The Handsome Family and in turn Fontaines frontman Willy Vlautins novels. I have re-read the book three times in as many weeks.

It’s an icy gem of a debut and the first to bring a “Jesus Christ!” and genuine sadness from me in a couple of years. An achingly simple story of two brothers who have already suffered an early life of booze, death, mutilation and living in endless Reno Motels; who are thrown into a new and terrible situation by one’s drunken actions.

In perpetual snow, poverty, tears and drink, they try to figure a way out of it and go on the run in the middle of the night. One brother must hold it together for the sake of the other’s mind and the childlike stories he invents to try to lull the other to sleep are touchingly futile. Told in a first-person narrative that I defy anyone to not be haunted by. It drifts like the snow that covers the winter midwest of its setting to a conclusion full of pathos but never revolting sentimentality. There’s a strange warmth running throughout and maybe the feeling that closeness and even those pains in our collective ass — family — are worth something.

If, you have three quid and happen to be on Amazon, then spend it on this freezing, bleeding masterpiece.

If, after two chapters you are not moved and don’t need to keep reading, you are already fucking dead.