(Palace Records/Spunk)

As the primary instigator of all things Palace, Will Oldham has spent several years carefully nurturing a reputation for producing shambolic masterpieces. His last proper outing under the moniker of the Bonny Prince, 1999’s I See A Darkness , was a quantum leap away from both his Palace and solo work. A fragile, awe inspiring journey into the depths of a troubled soul, it introduced Oldham to a whole new audience, even inspiring Johnny Cash to cover the title song on his last LP.

Two years and a few excellent EPs later, Oldham has dragged all his friends and family into the studio once more, and under the guidance of David Pajo (Tortoise/Slint), produced a marvellous, jaunty album, almost the antithesis to the darkness to which he seemed enslaved. Revisiting the jaunty country sounds of early Palace (particularly There Is No One What Will Take Care of You), only with some real technical ability these days, this journey is described perfectly by the album’s title o a delightful day spent easing slowly down a country road, cold beer in hand and adulterous family in tow.

The tragedy of Oldham’s continued development as a musician is that he has started to develop real song structure and tunesmithery o the absence of which made Palace that extra bit special. There are more verse-chorus-verse songs present on this album than in all of his career prior, and a voice that was once always ready to shatter into a thousand pieces trying to reach a middle note now bubbles with exuberance and confidence. Still, his lyrics are as off-the-wall delightful as ever, half gut-wrenching poetry, and half cheeky wordplay, along with the odd line that defies description: “Sara walks a slinky strut/very gorgeous anxious slut/has a love scar on her wrist/we’ll give her our painful fist”.

Along with brother Ned, members of Smog, Royal Trux and Freakwater, and a cameo from Harmony Korine, Oldham journeys through the tribulations of getting older and settling down, easing down life’s road and questioning the purpose of his lonely existence. From the troubled royalty in the Palace in “A King At Night”, condemned to a life of loneliness, to a man contented with his future in the fabulous banjo-laden hoedown finale with a “Rich Wife Full of Happiness”, who can’t hold her voice still “the way nooses hold necks still in excellent poise”, I have been on few more enjoyable journeys.

Beneath the twisted poetry of the lyrics and devastatingly simple musical arrangements, this seems to be an album about the oldest topic of them all o love. The Bonny Prince is simultaneously recoiling in fear of it, and rejoicing in its glow. There may be a thousand imitators in the “insurgent country” market these days, but nobody is making music quite as special as Oldham’s.