I See a Darkness

This is what floating on a sinking ship probably feels like. Will Oldham still firmly believes in his ideals he set with his earlier albums. Living with The Darkness as a roommate, and the whole nine yards: the bad-bad and the bad with the rose-tinted glasses, if you catch my drift.

Some tracks are great, while others a more of a filler, than anything, which doesn't help, considering the mood it sets. The middle sags a bit, with the ending and beginning having some real punch in it. A bit hopeless, and a bit like a drunken singer at the end of the night. Shame the middle is a bit nonsensical and numbing, really kills the flame.

I generally HATE this type of music. It's sparse and slow, melancholy yet melodious. The vast majority of this genre comes off performative and disingenuous. This is not that. Here there is an authentic emotional weight that you can feel, and that alone seems to be all it takes to reel me in to a style of music I'd normally disregard before the first track was finished.

Культовий альбом, культовий виконавець. Памʼятаю як я досить довго шукав де б послухати, бо на стрімінгах не було. Тут звісно є сильні пісні, але скільки я не намагався слухати дискографію Бонні Прінца Біллі, я так і не знайшов альбома, який би повністю мені сподобався. Цей підійшов найближче напевно, десь на 3.5. Округлю до 4х тут.

Across Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Palace and under his own name, Will Oldham's are consistently 4 star.

I don’t know what it says about my mental state that I really enjoyed this.

I was in quite a good mood whilst listening to this, which maybe isn't the correct way of listening to it. It's undoubtedly a very emotional album, but one that doesn't resonate with me.

Really pretty and sad, worth a listen for sure

Not bad, but pretty much every song sounds the same, sad melancholic guitar music, really quite boring, probably 2 stars, 2.5 on RYM

Depressing

Man, I was ready to fall asleep about two tracks in. Not my style.

Wow, this took me by surprise (I've listened to more than 200 albums as part of this project, and I'd say this is among my top-5 positive surprises). I had never heard of Bonnie "Prince" Billy (though I must have listenened to the cover of "I See a Darkness" by Johnny Cash). I was also surprised to find about the (excellent) cover by Rosalia.

Now, about the album. I found this very good. Not very impressed with the first track and I thought it would be kind of boring. But...I was wrong. Actually, it kept growing and getting better and better.

I enjoyed many of the tracks here: "Nomadic Revery", "I See a Darkness", "Another Day Full of Dread", "Death to Everyone", "Madeleine-Mary", "Song For The New Breed", "Today I Was an Evil One", or "Black". Surprisingly varied and really enjoyable.

It is between 4 and 5 stars for me (4 stars for now, but likely to grow on me). It is also worth noting that this album is not for a casual listen. This requires a certain mood (not necessarily sad or depressed by the way, but somehow introspective).

I liked this a lot. I didn't recognize the artist name, but I have definitely heard some of these songs. I will definitely put this on again. Or at least I would if it was easier to find.

é bem bom, hein. um alt country mais introspectivo, com umas letras bem bacanas e baixo astral.
coisa boa demais esse aqui. só nao eh 5 porque acho que ele deve funcionar melhor depois de uma péssima notícia. hoje eu nao to triste, aí perdeu impacto. mas ainda eh bem bom, hein

Nice, a Prince album! Oh.

Actually, this is not bad. It's chill emotional folksy indie. Some of the songs are a little too baleful wail-y for my preference, but it's got the emo spirit.

Word mysteries: what is "hosing" in 'Death to Everyone'? ("Death to everyone / Is gonna come / And it makes hosing / Much more fun") Many internetters also wondered. Many internetters concluded it's a sex thing, but although that's often the answer with such mysteries, I'm not fully convinced in this case. One person proclaimed it's like the gerund version of the Canadian "hoser" ("hosering"?), but Prince is from Kentucky, so that doesn't seem super likely. However, I have limited time to spend investigating, so I will leave it for future researchers.

This is one of my favorite albums ever; let's start there. I think this is one of the peaks of the '90s singer-songwriter scene, and it's *probably* the crown jewel of Will Oldham's discography. I See A Darkness is Gothic country music, taken deathly seriously. This sounds like ripple across a pond, it sounds like it was recorded on the moon. It's pure Americana songwriting, but the twang is just replaced with an all encompassing stillness. It's a remarkable cleanness, but it is achieved while still sounding organic and raw. And the lyrics and vocals get this all the way there. In contrast with the crystalline sound of the music here, Will Oldham sings shakily, and his lyrics jump between anachronistic, clever and straight up vulgar. But the collective effect of it kind of disembodied "Bonnie Prince Billy" as a character. The implicit narrator here feels angry, but frightened and quiet. There's a really unique obsession with morality here as well. I believe Will Oldham said that the title track is kind of about entertaining the idea that you are ontologically evil, though you wish to do good. There are songs about being evil through laziness, songs about companionship, and songs about accepting death in order to wrestle power away from it. And, like I said, this is all narrated with an incredibly unique, dark tone. And with this all going on, the stillness of this album makes it feel almost scary. Even the most fiery moment here, Death To Everyone, feels restrained and patient and measured, almost like a dissertation, even while it seems like it could boil over. Every song here is a masterwork of modern Americana, taken to a place that is, on some level, truly haunting. It's gorgeous, it's depressing, and sometimes, it's weirdly triumphant. But this gets my highest recommendation, and is one of my favorite albums of all time.

Forgetable... yet another one where I really don't understand why or how it ended up on this list :-(

My streaming service didn't have the album. I listened to a few tracks on YouTube. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't interesting enough for me to want to check it out further. 3/5

I knew the title track via Johnny Cash's American Recordings cover and like it a lot. Intrigued by the rest but my mind had trouble locking onto it. It's a persistent problem with these folky indie acts and me... see also Badly Drawn Boys, Bright Eyes, Elliot Smith.

No. NO.

I can see the charm in this, I promise. It's soft, it's quiet, it reminds me a bit of Nick Drake and David Thomas Broughton. But in no way am I fan of the out-of-sync background vocals. He's got a nice voice and everything, but I want so badly for those vocals to /sync up/ and add some real power to his words. Please, Bonnie. I was so ready to enjoy the song Madeleine-Mary and its seemingly dub-inspired guitar work, only for those vocals to come in and just SUCK. IT SUCKS. It's so aggravating. I'm so sorry.

moody