Artist – Album: Bonnie “Prince” Billy – I See a Darkness
Released: 19th January 1999
Sounds Like: Billy learns to stop worrying and love
the darkness
I See a Darkness is a sparse, bleak folk set, steeped in
melancholy and anxiety. The subject matter involves fear and mortality (just look
at the track listing: ‘Another Day Full
of Dread’, ‘Death to Everyone’, ‘Today
I Was an Evil One’ and ‘Black’); even
the album cover is nightmarish, a creepy skull egg against a pitch black
backdrop. Bonnie “Prince” Billy (a.k.a.
William Oldham), though, seems quite comfortable and content to embrace the
shadows, and it is this restful acceptance of the bad things that makes it such
a wonderful record; an album that you can listen to repeatedly without having
to succumb to the despair it details.
The album kicks off with ‘A Minor Place’, a deceptively cheery shuffle that welcomes the
listener in to Oldham’s mindset, declaring the fact that he’s been to this depressed
place or condition but that he likes it. Stylistically, the following track, ‘Nomadic Revery’, more accurately sets
the tone for the rest of the album, starting with hushed minor chords on the
piano and Oldham’s plaintive vocals, before giving way to multilayered voices,
electronic guitar, simple drums and a repeating chant of ‘Oh all around’.
The title track comes next, an exceptional confession to a
friend of the bad turns his mood can take and the strength his friend can give
him. Johnny Cash covered it respectably enough, but this is the single greatest
statement of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s sound and manner. Other highlights include
the country tinged ‘Today I Was an Evil
One’ and the lovely album closer “Raining
in Darling”.
I See a Darkness is a stunningly well realised collection of
sad songs that somehow always hits the spot, regardless of the mood I’m in.
Albumaday... rating: 10/10
1. A
Minor Place – 3:43
2. Nomadic
Revery (All Around) – 3:58
3. I
See a Darkness – 4:49
4. Another
Day Full of Dread – 3:10
5. Death
to Everyone – 4:31
6. Knockturne
– 2:17
7. Madeleine-Mary
– 2:31
8. Song
for the New Breed – 3:24
9. Today
I Was an Evil One – 3:52
10. Black
– 3:46
11. Raining
in Darling – 1:54
Listen
to ‘Nomadic Revery (All Around)’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWDgvrTjacs
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