BONNIE PRINCE BILLY - Lie Down In The Light LP

Pitchfork Best New Music 8.7

Bristling with guitar strings and laced with harmonies, Lie Down In the Light is the brightest album to date from the BONNIE PRINCE BILLY. Brisk tempos skip among his signature slower numbers and ballads. His vocals are among his most expressive: carefully nuanced, singing all up and down his range, showing him at a judiciously dynamic and tuneful apex. Coloring the sound is a subtle backdrop of percussive slaps and shakes (but nary a drum kit), touches of keys and steel, delicate harmony-vocal arrangements and other sweet surprises that might send some sad-sack fans back to their auto-erotic dungeons, fresh toys in hand.

Features repeat players PAUL OLDHAM and EMMETT KELLY and also benefits from the multi-instrumental presence of SHAHZAD IZMAILY, who works percussion, piano, guitar, banjo and the mysterious, sensual “row of wrenches.” New (duet) partner ASHLEY WEBBER forges her own presence next to Bonnie in a pair of fantastic turns.

Additionally, some of Nashville’s finest appear in between the band‘s strings and harrows, adding light wherever they appear.