When reading a Will Oldham interview or article, there is a high chance of finding references to him being mysterious, obtuse, and hard to approach. The sheer volume of interviews and Oldham’s presence in a variety of other media makes this proposition somewhat dubious; though he once might have passed off as a complicated artist to grasp, he’s a fairly public figure nowadays, certainly by independent music standards.

He has tried to be deliberately obtuse, though not successfully. Oldham releases albums under the name Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. Previously, he released a series of albums under various band names, generally combinations of standards and the word Palace, and in one particular case, no name at all. The idea to make a separation between the individual recording the albums and the album itself is not new, though it is rarely carried to such an extent. The name Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy stuck, and his increasing popularity has been under that name.

Oldham is not the first person to claim that the person in the songs is not himself (an unremarkable claim), or that his music is somewhat separate from himself (a more dubious one). It is hard to determine to what extent he believes this. He’s often referred to Bonnie as a character and a state of mind; it is possible to be Bonnie, just as it is possible to shed Bonnie and be Will. He has reasons to prefer this, associated with the connection the audiences feel and his own role in creating music. To a certain extent though, none of these ideas have ever been entirely successful; both his previous band-and-album naming scheme and his decision to finally decide on the name Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy strike as a patched-up solution to an idea that never quite worked; no one, after all, thinks of the Palace iterations as different bands, entities, or voices, nor is that era conceived as a separate career. This idea was always self-defeating, because the naming tricks create their own myth, and those who find out about the myth always do so knowing who is the man behind it. Nowadays, the idea of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy seems like a relic; Oldham is a working actor (with roles in indie fare such as Junebug and Old Joy), appears in R. Kelly and Kanye music videos, and goes on comedy shoes. The idea of a mystery and of a separation between each album is less credible when there are clear strands connecting them, common quirks between them all, and a public image of their creator.

Oldham’s career and discography are very similar to other musicians of his ilk, such as Ryan Adams, Bill Callahan, Conor Oberst, and the grandfather of them all, Bob Dylan. Through a series of albums, these artists move to and from two extremes, one being the embracing of tradition and two being the attempt at creating something new. It comes across both in the spirit of the songwriting and in the type of musicianship desired. Though their personalities are always present, either in lyrical style or individual performance, the form their backers take is often fundamentally different (see Adams’ wildly varied ’solo’ output when compared to the uniform quality and style of his ‘Cardinals’-backed records, or Dylan’s move from ground-breaking folk rock to his embrace of straight-up country in Nashville Skyline only a few years later). Solo artists such as these, whose bands are assembled for each album, tend to have more liberty in exploring these styles, changing their own role as frontman as they see fit.

The career hasn’t followed a clear path, especially under the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy name. It’s moved between two extremes, with meaningful work in both. There are the less conventional albums, with career highlight I See A Darkness being the most popular, a somber, gothic piece that confuses new fans by virtue of its distance from the rest of his output. The Letting Go, a 2005 album, had a similar purpose, but where I See A Darkness was quiet and brooding, this one was lush and overproduced, creating its own strange arctic folk sounds. In these, some of Oldham’s quirks are minimized, and the conventions and traditions he explores tend to be more obscure and less easily identifiable as a defined type. In the more traditional albums, he moves towards country and American folk sounds, exposing some of the more light-hearted aspects of his personality, and in a sense anchoring himself to his native region. The two extremes are palatable to different audiences; the more indie-mainstream and hipsterish aspects of Oldham are kept in check by the geniune respect and understanding of traditional forms.

Beware, his latest, is a completely predictable record. Every song and its elements is easygoing and safe. In it, Oldham is channeling more specific traditions, moving the furthest away from sounds more palatable to his indie and alternative fanbase since perhaps Greatest Palace Music. This time, he is more successful at replicating that ragged, yet elaborate traditional country sound.

“You Don’t Love Me” lives and dies by its little details; Oldham’s vocal performance is competent as usual, but what truly carries the song is the background: the chorus of rambling backup singers, Oldham’s own backing melodies, the interplay between electric leads and hypnotic trumpet melodies, the barely-there fiddle going astray and never quite catching up to the party, and the erratic handclaps. At its best, the album can convince you of its spontaneity and energy, attaining a feeling of exhilarance and vulnerability absent in some of Oldham’s less traditional albums.  In “I Am Goodbye” (the album’s lead single) the band keeps a steady beat and plucking at strings before having its fiddles and weirdly-phased guitars fight it out, the rest of the instruments barely keeping pace, the singers hooting and hollering in the background. In “Beware Your Only Friend”, it’s the singers that overpower Oldham, a chorus of girls singing along with him and giving heavenly power to his pleading. The slower pieces, too, tend towards the ornate. It’s easy to reimagine “You Are Lost” as a Master & Everyone-styled spare ballad. Where an earlier album would have had a delicate female voice backing Oldham, here it’s a full chorus, all the voices and instruments swelling up, trumpets and drums building up to an epic moment rare in Oldham’s reserved discography. The use of backing vocals is the most striking difference in comparison with the last few albums, where a lone singer would complement Oldham in often strange ways, The Letting Go being the strongest example. Unfortunately this is lost here, though the moods and feelings Oldham is exploring wouldn’t be well-served by the unpredictable and jarring shifts that made the Oldham-McCarthy partnership fulfilling.

In many ways, this is not any different than Oldham’s other explorations of traditional music and American imagery. Perhaps in this case, since they are more conventional, it is easier to perceive it as inauthentic and predictable, but the quality of the underlying songs is never in question. This is the most traditional Oldham, not afraid to unabashedly replicate obvious influences, living through convention and history. He is successful because, despite his public image of a winking, semi-ironic jokester, he is clearly treating these songs and these ideas with respect, and performing earnestly. The declarations, the rousing choruses, the pedals, the saxophone solos, all could have turned into an uncomfortable joke (the way his covers in last year’s Ask Forgiveness did). But they never do. They’re real, even if “Bonnie” isn’t.