September 23, 1999
What may be the best album of 1999 sounds as if it could have been written in 1899. Following no trend except that which tracks the primeval concerns of the human condition - love, death, and the soul's battleground between good and evil - this album is quietly but absolutely devastating.
Will Oldham has recently been building an impressive body of country- and folk-tinged work under the Palace moniker, but his solo albums have recently taken a slight turn away from the bare-boned Pentecostal fire of those albums to a more direct melodic approach. Under the Bonnie "Prince" Billy name, he has created a masterpiece of astonishing power. This album is desperate, longing, terrified and unforgiving, making the listener feel small, in the presence of something timeless and wise. This is the sound of Nietzche's Abyss.
Though young, Oldham's voice is as cracked and weathered as the Appalachians which his music seems to have sprung from - he is perhaps the most human singer this decade has produced, similar in effect if not style to Dylan. Appropriately, his voice is the centerpiece of the album, with oceanic bass guitar tones, a smattering of drum, and hints of piano clearing wide open space for him to lament. Darkly atmospheric melodies lodge like a tumor over evocative, poetic lyrics, of which this is most telling: "Dread and fear should not be confused/By dread I'm inspired, by fear I'm amused." Other than the echoing reggae electric guitar that leads the sea-chant "Madeline-Mary", the music is as simple, direct and beautiful as a parable, with much the same distilled impact.
Both humbling and exhilarating for the pure emotion it unleashes, I See A Darkness demands that you listen in solitude, preferably late in the evening. Keep a respectful distance from the speakers.
- Jared O'Connor
Quietly devastating