A veritable smorgasbord of country motifs allow Will Oldham to further project his idiosyncrasies, with a deceptively conventional masterclass.

Release Date: 31st January 2025

Label: Domino

Format: CD / vinyl / digital

AKA

To be called an Appalachian post-punk solipsist, as he has been, strains even my wordplay. But maybe it’s true. Possibly the only way to get a handle on Will Oldham and his extraordinarily prolific muse. Over a career embracing more than a few other aliases, Bonnie “Prince” Billy is the one with most traction. Now with this, his fifteenth, or thereabout, under that name, alongside a host of duet and other collaborative arrangements. Before that he was Palace Brothers and Palace Music, with only 1997’s Joya, under his own name.

SPARSE AND SPARE

If the Oldham trademark is of sparse and spare arrangements, characterised by his wobbly tenor, the image is all backwoods waif, in dungarees and a walrus moustache. Sometimes he breaks free and does something a little more orthodox. And, much as I like the eerie isolation of his purer work, it is his occasional forays, embracing glossier studio polish, that I find myself more often returning. Sings Greatest Palace Music, in 2004, was one, and now, this is another.

Bringing in an external producer is something he almost never does, being more than capable by himself. But, by bringing in Nashville veteran, David Ferguson, someone he first met during those sessions when Johnny Cash covered his I See A Darkness, and to which he added backing vocals, there is a sense of alternate witness. The trademark constructions gifted some unexpected cladding. Add in some top notch musicians, to include Tim O’Brien, and it as if Oldham’s lonely outer lane is the main drag. Almost.

SONGS FOR WAKES

The ominously entitled Turned To Dust (Rolling On) is every bit as maudlin as it sounds, delightfully so, mordant and morbid both, in that odd way that only a dirge can be this uplifting. A classic southern country soul construction, it opens with pentecostal organ, infusing hefty gospel fumes, added to by the agreeably hokey backing vocals, which adorn Oldham’s more faltering entreaties. Ornery drums clip clop it along, the mood a mix of funereal and eventual salvation. An unexpectedly scything guitar solo segues in, an effective contrast with a plinky plonky piano. Wonderful, a song you may be already be plotting to include at your own wake.

London May has a slight change in arrangement, if not of subject seriousness: “Leave it to solitude all along, only the lonely can be so strong. Never has anyone made such a fuss; death looks in the window as only death must.” Piano chords underline the significance of it all, but, by virtue a steady drum beat, it propels a never more frail Oldham vocal into a sense of purpose. Fiddles add to the pathos and it is achingly beautiful.

SOMETHING LIGHTER

Perhaps it was felt we might need something lighter, so Tonight With The Dogs I’m Sleeping is a variation around the standard country trope, the saddle sore protagonist at the bar, several glasses down, anticipating the outcome back home. Banjo and harmonica vie for attention and it is a all you expect in such a scenario, if with some self-coruscating Oldham sharpness: “I’m all bark, she’s all bite.” Woof!

Boise, Idaho is, I guess, the logical next step, the morning after and beyond, a search of the soul from the the doghouse to the unforgiving open road of the ousted. The sort of song steel guitars are made for, and they don’t let you down. A sad and philosophical song, it is followed by the more positive The Water’s Fine. As in come on in. Coming at this stage, the overt unhipness of this track is no great shock, but the Billy curious might wish to avoid this as their first immerse, being near the lovechild of Keep On The Sunny Side and Livvy Neutron-Bomb’s Banks Of The Ohio, From when country was western, never mind post punk, this is almost pre-rock. Me? I love it!

HIGHPOINT

Sweeping aside decades of musical progress, Sometimes It’s Hard To Breathe, the highpoint of this record, and of a style that could have been written yesterday, or even tomorrow. The scene and soundscape is a dark desert highway, but no wind in your hair, the baking sun stealing all air from your lungs. Steel howls like a coyote, ahead of Oldham slowly intoning his warning, a vintage organ pumping up in the background. A masterful assemblage of melody and production, arrangement and lyrics: “We can do it, we can make it, for a while.” You can feel the gap, a heavy pause, in that statement.

BY CONTRAST…

…New Water, another mention of water, something the singer sees as cleansing, is near nursery rhyme simplicity. Hazy brass adds warmth, and the feel is not so distant from the more whimsical aspects of the Neil Young songbook, say, Sugar Mountain. The brass is Bacharach-y, with rodeo waltztime fiddles a surprisingly successful connect. Lulled thereby, the next track feels as if it comes from a completely different project. Set to the oompah band Tex-Mex style of Nortēno, it is called Guns Are For Cowards. The visceral assault of “Who would you shoot in the face? Who would you shoot in the brain?” sits at a deliberate cross-purpose with the jaunty arrangement, more so as the la-la-las strike up.

Another possible deal breaker for the unconverted, it might also open up ears to the vistas of enjoyment available in these less mainstream genres. Regardless of the words, which offer a hardly controversial message.

That message presented, the aquatic theme of cleansing returns for Downstream. Featuring guest vocals, from apparent Nashville legend, John Anderson, I confess not liking his constricted vocal timbre, however much the arrangement is otherwise lifted by some judicious whistle, which lifts sense of sameness that might otherwise be creeping in. Normal service resumes for One Of These Days (I’m Gonna Spend The Whole Night With You), as close a simple lovesong as you are going to get from this auteur. Of course, it is also full of self-doubt and provisos, belying the sweetness of the setting. This is Oldham.

GENEROUS PROPORTIONS

I’m uncertain the provenance of including a cover in an already generously proportioned album. Nonetheless, this is what we got, with a stripped back rendition of Is My Living In Vain, once by the Clark Sisters. (Me neither.) With mainly just picked guitar and voice, give or take some muted strings and steel, it feels a riposte to Dylan’s Is Your Love In Vain. And, whenever it was written, that is going to remain my truth. I’d have ended it there, but there is one final track, Our Home, described as a hoedown. Indeed, it starts well, with, presumably, O’Brien’s mandolin scrubbing. However it then dips into what I can only call full happy clappy, which is, I fully concur, my problem and prejudice. Those of a more open mind may embrace, but it’s a skip from me. Sorry.

Despite that, this remains a terrific album. One that may help open up the idiosyncracy of Oldham’s oeuvre to a more mainstream audience, if forewarned by the some of the stylistic soundscape. Recommended.

Back to the beginning, here is the stellar opener, irrespective any evangelical overtone:

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