Bonnie Prince Billy: The Purple Bird

“If you’re asking my opinion / I’m just an ordinary man,” sings Will Oldham on Turned to Dust (Rolling On) – the opening song from the latest Bonnie Prince Billy dispatch, The Purple Bird. Not only is it the kind of late night AM radio country lament that stirs the embers, but it’s also one of the many kernels of truth from Bonnie Prince Billy’s thirteenth long-player.

Oldham has always shone light into the soul’s darkest corners. In many ways it’s why his music has been so compelling over the years, and while The Purple Bird sees Oldham continuing to shine that light, on this occasion he finds some hope and something to latch on to. Now settled in family life, the stakes now seem to be whatever they will be.

On last year’s collaboration, Hear Children Sing The Evidence, where Oldham was joined by Nathan Salsburg and Tyler Trotter to cover two of Lungfish’s seminal tracks, it saw the former at his free-wheeling best. In the long form, the trio were untethered and at their truly intoxicating best, and some of that rubs off on The Purple Bird.

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With Nashville legend and Johnny Cash producer David Ferguson at the helm, while Oldham didn’t want to make a ‘Nashville record’, The Purple Bird isn’t quintessentially that: it’s Oldham’s Nashville record. The difference? Oldham stands alone and not on the shoulders of giants. Take London May, a song with a vintage Oldham chorus likened to a gentle summer breeze, and it’s this unique atmosphere that permeates all throughout these songs.

There’s plenty of fun, too. Take the doghouse blues of Tonight with the Dogs Sleeping. That “sitting at the bar with one or two” more like six or seven deep, and as the protagonist woozily shuffles to the phone at the end of the bar, his better half is on the other end of the line with knives sharpened. An old school yarn most marriages have experienced once upon a time, it’s Oldham having fun like he’s never had before.

On the other end of the spectrum, album highlight, Boise, Idaho, isn’t just one of the most tender songs Oldham has ever written, but it’s also one of his best. It’s the Water is in a similar vein in what are both snapshots of wispy, soft alt-country designed for open roads and rolling mountains.

It’s not the only time water features in these songs – the environment prominent on The Purple Bird. Alongside John Anderson, Downstream is all about stifling progression through outmoded practices, as older generations sleepwalk through the wreckage. Those political undercurrents become more direct on Guns Are for Cowards – a folk-laden barnyard singalong where all the town is invited. The result? A likely all-in-brawl after the inebriated republican faction take umbrage to the song’s first couple of verses.

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Meanwhile, Sometimes It’s Hard to Breathe could have featured on Yelllowstone. A song you could almost hear Walker singing in a bar filled with the lonely and the life damaged, it’s these bare, rural backdrops that also feature on closer, Our Home. Alongside Tim O’Brien, with a line like, “Nobody’s perfect/ Nobody cares / That’s how we make it our home,” Oldham nails it.

It’s this kind of wisdom that’s all throughout The Purple Bird. The Water’s Fine (“Life can be so unkind / You’ve got to leave it all behind / You’ve got yours / I’ve got mine / Come on in / The water’s fine”) and Turned to Dust (Rolling On) (“Can’t we just get along / As life is rolling on”), moments where Oldham picks a part the complexities of life through the simplicity of country music. And while many have achieved something similar over the years, Oldham does it via his own path. Free and comfortable as he’s ever been, through the vessel of country music, on The Purple Bird he bottles up his messages and sets them free.

The Purple Bird is out now via Domino Recording Co. Purchase from Bandcamp.