Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - Beware

ALT.COUNTRY

Wildwood lothario Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – the alter ego of Kentuckian alt.country outlaw Will Oldham – has inhabited and advanced the guise of folk defiler, kinship analyst and hirsute, horny man-beast since his come-hither intones were first exposed on 1999’s empyrean I See a Darkness.

Like last year’s hoary-rock expo Lie Down in the Light’ however, Beware’s cordial, abundant country and western is disheartening in comparison to our savage protagonist’s bygone naked, gruff avowals.

There are flashes of Bonny laid bare in Beware, but we’re largely left unfulfilled. We need him desperate, wretched, bruised. He commandeered our love that way.

(Domino)