In "My Home Is the Sea", Bonnie "Prince" Billy, voice thin and impossibly brittle, conveys proud love for his bulbous tummy, gleefully declaring it "round and firm and funny"-- just like him! Sardonic or not, this kind of belly-speak marks a rare moment of self-revelation for Will Oldham, who skewers accepted notions of static identity nearly every time he lowers his big, bearded jaw. Still, Oldham (appearing here as contemporary alter-ego Bonnie "Prince" Billy) is, ultimately, exactly what he says he is-- smart and tough and weird, an awkward, oddly charismatic songwriter just as well-suited to coughing up death-ballads as he is to giggling out ditties about his penis. Witness, again, the bitter joy of loyal Oldham-hood: He is simultaneously quiet and loud, both crushing and absurd, and filed in seven different places at the record store.
Superwolf, a new collaboration with guitar freelancer Matt Sweeney, sees Oldham at his squirrely best, squeaking out his finest songs since 1999's I See a Darkness. Superwolf marks Oldham's first official partnership with Sweeney, whose credits include a predictably brief stint axe-grinding in Billy Corgan's Zwan (alongside longtime Oldham buddy and Slint-forefather Dave Pajo), occasionally playing guitar in Guided by Voices, and fronting the long-departed Chavez (who released two revered full-lengths on Matador in the mid-90s).
Sweeney's participation in Superwolf was supposedly a response to a songwriting "challenge" from Oldham, and in addition to songwriting, Sweeney contributes backing vocals and guitar figures that echo Oldham's own blows, sometimes with eerie accuracy. But despite all that buddying up, Superwolf is still at times unnervingly spare-- Oldham and Sweeney's pauses can be devastating, and some of Superwolf's most powerfully convincing bits pop up between notes.
Opener "My Home Is the Sea" may sound an awful lot like late Grateful Dead (or, perhaps more specifically, like a slightly less raucous version of brother Ned Oldham's Anomoanon, who regularly employ Garcia-brand noodling and wild, space-rock somersaults), but most of Superwolf is quiet and intensely meditative, despite Sweeney's significant rock-inflections. Still, Oldham has always had a funny habit of inserting perverse, quasi-sexual shouts into otherwise-staid songs (see brutally confessional couplets rubbing up against phrases like "my horny horn"), and at least thematically, Superwolf's eleven tracks are predictably shifty-- "My Home Is the Sea" is rife with snarky lyric tricks (watch Oldham follow the momentarily devastating "I have often said/ That I would like to be dead" with a tiny pause and silent giggle, finally finishing with: "In a shark's mouth").
No matter who or what he calls himself, Will Oldham has always been uniquely capable of making colossal leaps in tone between breaths, and from track to track Superwolf nobly maintains that practice, drifting gracefully from classic-rock stomps to whispery dirges. Consequently, Oldham followers may recognize Superwolf as a welcome midway point between Oldham's past aliases, as it hops from shambling, Viva Last Blues-ish, Palace Music-era shakes to dark, Master and Everyone haunts. "Beast for Thee" matches a gorgeous, barely-there melody with self-deflating lyrics ("Why are you kind to me?/ You could so easily take me in your arms and see/ A donkey"), Oldham's quivering pipes and Sweeney's fragile guitar coalescing into a soft, droning, and tremendously pretty whole. The equally excellent "Blood Embrace" features some of Oldham's heartiest vocals, each word strong and full, floating above dark electric guitar swirls, dodging film samples of a faithless woman whispering to an unnamed lover, crafting an atmosphere so tense and ominous that you almost can't help twisting your face around to peep over your shoulder.
Soft and subtle, Superwolf is the kind of record that unwinds slowly, and is best enjoyed over multiple listens and, unsurprisingly, many glasses of wine. Oldham and Sweeney mew coquettishly, stroking their guitars, cawing bizarre stories about love, death, and body parts: theirs is a rancid and beautiful landscape.
