Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

With his recognizable bald pate, full ginger beard, and voice soaked in Kentucky moonshine, Will Oldham—also known as Bonnie “Prince” Billy—occupies a constellation of his own in the alt-country scene. A prolific artist, he has been releasing albums for the last 15 years under a variety of names, including Palace, Palace Music, Palace Brothers, and Bonnie Billy, as well as moonlighting as an actor in indie films like “Wendy and Lucy” and “Old Joy.” Oldham’s music laces granola folk with violins and soulful vocals to create slow, poignant rhythms. One of his albums, “The Letting Go,” was recorded in Reykjavík, Iceland, and indeed, many of his songs transplant this glacial desolation to the American landscape of front porches and dark country nights.

Listeners will get none of that in his latest effort. “Beware,” Oldham’s 15th studio album, moves into the major key, fleshing out the sparse chords of his previous recordings for a more expansive, upbeat sound. It kicks off to a country-western start with the jangly “Beware Your Only Friend,” featuring fiddles, percussion, and a full gospel choir. “I want to be your only friend,” Oldham croons, echoed by a bevy of perky female vocalists singing, “Is that scary?” By the end of the song, Oldham’s voice strains as he attempts to raise it over a rising cacophony of accordions, guitars, and additional back-up vocals, now chiming in with a shrill, “Beware of me.”

A few tracks later, the title “You Don’t Love Me” holds out the promise of a bittersweet confection. But instead the song is playful, with handclaps and facile lyrics like “You say you like my eyes or just the way I giggle / sometimes you like the smell of me or how my stomach jiggles / but you don’t love me / that’s alright.” Most of the Oldham repertoire features unpredictable chord changes, but here the carnival atmosphere melts into stale poppy hooks, adorned by an occasional Nashville flourish pulled from the shelf.

It’s difficult to determine if these missteps are intended to be humorous or ironic, as their lyrics suggest—if they are, they certainly miss the mark. Luckily, the album’s silliest songs are front-loaded; Oldham regains his footing in the second half of the album. “You Are Lost” strips away the backup vocalists, replacing them with a lush wall of strings to accompany the words, “You are lost inside the sound.” “I Don’t Belong To Anyone” couches Oldham’s tender broodings in pleasant country cadences, coasting to a smooth-edged finish. And in “There Is Something I Have to Say,” Oldham updates the raw José González-style singer-guitar combo with a wash of icy background ambience and a minimalist layering of his own voice for a haunting, lovely effect.

“Beware” is in many ways the culmination of Oldham’s career trajectory; his sound has gradually moved away from the spare stylings of albums like “I See A Darkness” (which Johnny Cash liked so much he later recorded his own version with Oldham on backup) toward more polished studio trimmings. But in pulling in all the extra instruments (marimba, flute, tenor saxophone, and accordian, to name a few) it loses something of the stark devastation that gave voice to America’s stranger corners of existence. The album’s title should in the end serve as a warning to Oldham himself—amidst all the banjos and choirs, the warm shadowy spaces between the words may be lost.

—Staff writer Jessica A. Sequeira can be reached at jsequeir@fas.harvard.edu.