BONNIE “PRINCE” BILLY
Beware
(Drag City)
After multiple career tangents, name changes, and rambles hither and yon, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, ne Will Oldham, appears to have finally arrived. The accolades are pouring in from NPR to small-town daily newspapers — a marvel when one considers the fact that the Louisville, Ky., post-punk scene that Oldham sprang from was so roundly ignored during its most vital years in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when Squirrel Bait, Slint, and later Oldham and brothers Ned and Paul performed as Palace (Brothers/Songs/Music).
The most accessible, clean, and least eccentric recording to date from Oldham, Beware might be considered the recording in which the songwriter assumes his rightful place in the current rock canon as the music-maker who prefigured the so-called freak/out-folk scene and the enabler and encourager of such talents as Joanna Newsom and Dawn McCarthy.
This time, his roving sensibility finds its soothingly smooth fit with help from Josh Abrams of Town and Country, Emmett Kelly of Cairo Gang, Akita Youssefi, Jon Langford of the Mekons, Rob Mazurek of Isotope 217, and renowned pedal steel session player Greg Leisz, among others – likely his most accomplished set of contributors to date. Still, despite Beware’s full-bodied, country-soul sound, I feel almost nostalgic for the humanizing glitchy folk Palace and early Bonnie “Prince” Billy was known for – perhaps that’s just my indie rock values rearing their scruffy heads.