Beware

Beware from 2009 is one of the more playful entries in the Bonnie Prince Billy canon. It's also one of his fullest sounding records. the songs shift between light and dark, between personal revelation and emotional suffocation, never settling. The opening Beware Your Only Friend, from which the album title is contracted, sets the scene, buoyed by a range of instrumentation - crying pedal steel, fiddle, saxophone, a choir of swooning backing singers - that supplements Oldham's sweet, arch vocals. despite the intimation of foreboding contained within songs whose titles include I Am Goodbye and Death Final, the album is, for the most part, resolutely joyful.