That's a record that certainly will not go there to party; that never broadcast radios; who will not sell; where you will enter as patience, asceticism, allowing themselves overtaken by all the people in a hurry; and whose time will take care of gentle support with reputation and the status of masterpiece. Songs? You could say that. Couplets of? Refrains? Even. If Bill Callahan is a great songwriter, the equal of a Leonard Cohen or Lou Reed, at least he resists the formal classicism of the first and the genius of the grip of the second. Strangely floating musical structures, spectral, barely recognizable at first listen, but insidious, malignant crossings consistently great electric guitars and flutes virginal particularly incongruous at times struggling with the fiddles reminiscent of a country-western of or imagined origins as such, are at the service of powerful lyrics, lucid, and a haunting voice of the very mixed forward, close, deep, friend. There is an epic form in the intimate exhibition by Callahan, and a unique art of confusing the exploration of interior close to the contemplation of the great American spaces. It's bursting with individuality, beauty, breadth. Slow? Listen to the haunting beat printed by these jembes by these splendid rhythm guitars. Sad? And your sister? Sad or gay, or both at once: life itself. The true.
