Palace Music - Lost Blues and Other Songs

This is a compilation of singles and rare tracks from the various incarnations of Will Oldham as Palace/Palace Brothers/Palace Music etc.  As many collections like this can be, it's a bit all over the shop.  It opens with the dead slow but effective folk march of Ohio River Boat Song.  Many tracks here are, let's face it, hard going: the rough-as-fuck version of Riding, the completely out of tune singing on Stable Will to name but two.

But mostly downbeat folk is the order of the day on tracks like Valentine's Day, Trudy Dies and Come In.  Some of the stronger material is towards the end: O How I Enjoy The Light is a fairly typical Oldham lament with a neat line in warped guitar.  The two essential tracks are the relaxed, warm West Palm Beach which features some gorgeous electric guitar lines, and then the Stones-y lazy blues Gulf Shores, a bit like an updated No Expectations.  This latter track actually features soothing vocals from Will Oldham and a nice bit of piano.  But overall, not a collection for the fairweather fan.

Palace Music - Arise Therefore

After the leap forward of Viva Last Blues this is something of a regressive step.  It's a sparse collection of songs with the prominent addition of a drum machine (!).  Most of the songs simply have a slight rumbling bass, Will Oldham's whiny voice, drum machine and little else.  Some of the highlights are the very muted A Sucker's Evening, and the title track, which features a welcome drop of guitar.  No Gold Digger is probably the closest thing to any kind of 'proper' song with a kind of full sound on the album.  On other tracks like Kid of Harith and Disorder, Oldham's fast-and-loose-with-any-form-of melody vocals are inclined to grate.  For the uninitiated, this is really no place to start!

Palace Music - Viva Last Blues

Viva Last Blues represents a considerable leap forward for Palace Music.  Released in 1995, it has far more a full band sound than anything previous.  The band have a kind of loping, slightly warped country sound, exemplified by the opening two tracks More Brother Rides and Viva Ultra.  Some tracks have a darker, moody feel to them such as Brute Choir and the vengeful Tonight's Decision ("when he comes for me I will fuck him o, I will waste him in my own way"), and these songs are pretty effective.  The Mountain Low attracts attention for his lyrics about "if I could fuck a mountain..." etc but it's the kind of easy melody that Will Oldham would make his name with as Bonnie Prince Billy.  Later, New Partner has a lazy, relaxed easy charm, Oldham drawling "you were always on my mind".

Further into the album Work Hard / Play Hard rocks errr 'hard' with a full rocking sound and Oldham's squawked vocals. and the strutting, squalling guitars of Cat's Blues help to mix the sound up a bit, and stop the album from sounding too samey.  The rustic, bluesy folk of We All, Us Three, Will Ride and Old Jerusalem rounds off the album.