"THE LETTING GO"...

...by Bonnie "Prince" Billy is now in stores. It's gorgeous--the album I always wished he'd make. It has the directness and packs the emotional wallop of "Master and Everyone," but it's a lush, complicated album. However, "The Letting Go" has its surprises, and for me, those are the moments when the lushness vanishes, like muscle and fat being torn off to reveal shiny, white bone.

The album seems like it's engaged in a battle against an inevitable entropy, and while the album won me over with the thick, semi-orchestral first track ("Love Comes to Me"), it's the moody, haunted, overdubbed, exhausted, pre-dawn final track (appropriately named "Untitled") that gave me shivers.

If you get the album soon, you'll find that there's an 11 track(!) bonus CD called "Little Lost Blues" included for free. And while there's less polish on the bonus CD, there are some absolute gems, like "Southside of the World," which is as infectious as any track Will Oldham has recorded since "New Partner."

Listening to these wonderful new songs, with Will Oldham's voice possessed by the same dusty ghosts (and perhaps a few new ones), I have one question: what will his voice sound like when he's an old man?