SOUTHERN COMFORT

Bonnie Prince’ Billy is joined by seasoned Nashville players on a lovely, lullsome country-pop album, writes Helen Brown

- Helen Brown

The Purple Bird - Will Oldham's 22nd album as Bonnie "Prince" Billy - may be one of the warmest, mellowest country-pop releases of recent years, but that doesn't stop him using it to vent a little spleen about modern America. Over the porchswing sway of opening track "Turned to Dust (Rollin On)", he laments a nation “tempted by the lure of a liar, who preys on the foolish and the weak”. Later, against the farty brass parp and accordion lurch of a polka called “Guns Are for Cowards”, he asks listeners: “If you could do it without anyone saying that you’d committed a crime/ Who would you shoot in the face?/ Who would you shoot in the brain?/ Who would you shoot in the back?” More curious is his follow-up question: “Then how would you feel?/ Exalted? Or destroyed?”

Produced by David “Ferg” Ferguson (best known for engineering Johnny Cash’s later albums and producing John Prine) and recorded with some of the most seasoned session musicians in Nashville,