Richmond Fontaine's tenth studio album, The High Country, tells an operaticallytragic tale. Songwriter and novelist Willy Vlautin has written anextraordinarily eccentric album like no other. More than a concept record, TheHigh Country is a song-novel: a fully realized, novel-sized story set to music.Set in a rural logging community in Oregon, The High Country is a Gothic lovestory between a mechanic and an auto parts store counter girl, whose secret loveinspires an effort to escape the darkness of the world that surrounds them --drugs, violence, madness, loneliness, and desperation set against a backdrop ofendless logging roads and the remains of a forest brutalized by logging. In thisstory of light vs. dark, Vlautin has woven a tale where screw-ups and freaksdemonize the lives of innocents.The High Country features Richmond Fontaine members Dan Eccles (guitar), DaveHarding (bass, guitar, vocals), Sean Oldham (percussion, keyboards, guitar,vocals) and Willy Vlautin (vocals, guitar) joined by The Damnations' DeborahKelly (lead vocals on four songs) and Fontaine regulars Paul Brainard (pedalsteel), Ralph Huntley (keyboards, accordion) and Collin Oldham (cello,cellomobo). Producer and film scorer John Askew brings his knack for creatingatmosphere and sonic depth to the record.