Just Just got this on vinyl over at Waterloo, looked for a thread on this but saw none. It deserves it's own.
Having seen this guy in multiple incarnations over the years, and knowing he has raised the bar pretty high more than once, this record does not disappoint. The songwriting/arrangements/lyrics are all top of his game Oldham. The recording itself has this dark yet spacious quality that opens up at just the right moments. I might try to find more words to describe how beautiful this is, but why bother? It speaks for itself.

so, better than the last one?

It's hard for me to say, the last one for me got better and better with every listen. This new one is really good. I honestly haven't ever been disappointed with one of his releases.

Saw him tonight live, and it rocketed to one of my favorite shows I've seen.

Touring with a great bunch of musicians helps, which allows him to kinda go off and be wacky during the show. Just so you know, in addition to his semi-regular eyeliner, he had bright blue nail polish on tonight. His stork poses while playing guitar, and cryptic messages about rhubarb didn't seem to phase the sell-out crowd. I will say that songs like "A Minor Place" definitely benefited from a full orchestration with 2 guitars, fiddle, 2 percussionists, stand-up bass, and sax.

I think my favorite points were the "freakout" sessions where you had a mixture of folk and skronking sax with intensive drumming and heavily distorted bass. Oh my.

The opening act was Old Calf, which is a new band from Ned Oldham (relation?). They were great, and usually I don't jump right onto these opening acts, but their tee-shirt design with an old calf being fed a bottle was just too good not to buy.

Saw them all at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. If you get a chance to ever see a show there--do it. Best handling of everything. Pickup tix at 5pm, give you a deli number, you go to the bar for an hour, then they call numbers 1 by 1 to avoid a rush, you go in sit at yr table, order then the show starts promptly at 7:30. So nice.

When did this album come out? I knew nothing of it. I LOVED The Leting Go. Probably my favorite BpB album.



*blog with active link, if interested.*

It came out about 2 months ago, not even a full year after "Lie Down In The Light."

Absolutely worth litening to...and I agree that his music sometimes takes time to fully unfold...and I've listened to this only 4-5 times... but it seems much more "conventional" than past work. Nothing wrong with solid centrist music and songwriting, but I expect more edgey from the voice of Palace et.al.

I keep trying to give this a chance. I was a big fan of Lie Down in the Light and The Letting Go, and am admittedly a late-comer to Will Oldham (I've never heard anything before The Letting Go in 2006).

I see him at the Belcourt here in Nashville on June 10 and hoping seeing the songs live will do something for Beware. I just haven't "felt" this one yet.





Ned is Will's brother.

anomoanan is ned's old band -- really good too. you'd definitel dig them FR....

Yeah, I figured that out with some digging. I'm probably gonna dl some stuff from emusic, unless any of you fine folks have some stuff lying around and want to up it.

i just can't get into it.

i kinda like it