More Revery

It seems even Will Oldham cuts loose sometimes. Perhaps as a result of his recent marriage, or perhaps because – like Monty Python’s hermits – even the most committed oversexed backwoods recluse has to come down the mountain for a pint of milk and a chat every once in a while. More Revery finds Bonny Billy in uncharacteristically non-fucked-up form. A mini-album of cover versions, the songs are so simply recorded and interpreted, and so devoid of tension, it nearly feels as if he is out of character.

John Phillips’ ‘Someone’s Sleeping’ could have been a beautiful B-side circa Ease Down The Road, even though it’s substantially sunnier than anything on the album itself. John Holt’s ‘Strange Things’ taps intriguingly enough into a darker vein, despite being somewhat overdressed in studio effects (quite different to Oldham’s usual, and superior, bare-skin approach). Two lusty, full-throttle careens, through The Renderers’ brilliant ‘A Dream of the Sea’ and PJ Harvey’s ‘Same Love That Made Me Laugh,’ conjure images, bizarrely, of what Mr O might metamorphose into if presented with twelve tequilas and a karaoke mic, and, as such, are quite delicious.