Bonnie Prince Billy’s latest album “Beware” should have been titled “Lonesome Crowded West,” but Modest Mouse beat singer-songwriter Will Oldham to that one. The set epitomizes a romanticized view of American folk music. Upon listening to the album, unbidden images of sun-bleached cow skulls and tumbleweeds come to mind, not just because of Oldham’s twangy voice, nor the use of country-western instruments– the mandolin, a wood block, sparse drums, a meanding steel guitar and a slow fiddle (sometimes called a violin). Because each instrument is playing skeletal scales each note takes on more importance. Instead of building a wall of sound by layering an orchestra of music, Oldham highlights the emotional heights his voice evokes by turning up the echo effect on most of the album. Female backing vocals, a bluegrass staple, have the same effect. Not every track has the minimalist feel– “You Don’t Love Me” even adds a hefty brass section to the mix, livens up the drum and manages to turn once-haunting steel guitar riffs into peppy, clappable verses.
Some tracks, like “Beware Your Only Friend” and “I Don’t Belong to Anyone” could be played from horseback. The love-lorn “Heart’s Arm’s” could be a camp fire tribute to a still-burning torch. This is my favorite track. Oldham’s lyrics do their part to emphasize the heart-on-sleeve effect:
Why don't you write me anymore?
Have you found something as good just next door?
I open this awful machine to nothing
where once your intimacies came pounding.
Not a single song on the thirteen track album is over five minutes long– the shortest is just over two minutes long. This is a good thing– the songs build quickly, the music swells, crests and then wraps up. There are no long intro or outros, just soulful singing and masterful instrumentation.
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