Send "Bonnie Prince Billy " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Avclub |
 The latest Bonnie “Prince” Billy album elevates The Cairo Gang’s main man, Emmett Kelly, from bit player to key collaborator, making prominent use of the avant-folkie’s voice and guitar as they wind easily around Will Oldham’s. The Wonder Show Of The World relies equally on Oldham’s in-the-moment spontaneity and the kind of ghostly after-the-fact orchestrations that Kelly brings to his own work. The album-opener, “Troublesome Houses,” sets the tone, coming out rhymeless and rhythmless: Its hook is little more than a two-note guitar signature, joined by little wisps of sound, as though friends wandered by, dug what Oldham and Kelly were doing, and were inspired to pick up their own instruments.The intimacy of Wonder Show is common to Oldham’s work, whether he’s in high-lonesome mode with “Merciless And Great,” evoking a quiet church with “Someone Coming Through,” or getting a good call-and-response going with “Go Folks, Go.” The record is an achingly beautiful paean to companionship, whether musical or romantic, but it also embraces the mess of togetherness. Only Oldham could record a song as lovely as “That’s What Our Love Is”—with Kelly doing his best impression of David Crosby’s guitar over the bridge—and include a line hailing “the smell of your box on my mustache.” Nothing is ever clean in the Bonnie “Prince” Billy world....full text |
| Allmusic |
| Although The Wonder Show of the World is the first Bonnie "Prince" Billy record to feature a co-billing with the Cairo Gang, he's been accompanied by guitarist Emmett Kelly many times, both as part of his live band and in the studio for some of his best work of the 2000s (The Letting Go, Lie Down in the Light). This time it's special, though, with Kelly in the limelight like he's never been on record and a spare, no-frills production to emphasize the music-making on display. His playing is fluid and virtuosic but never showy, and his range is impressive, from fingerpicked guitar to lazy but jagged country-rock (on the occasional track with drums) to the brooding, stately "Teach Me to Bear You," where he tears off a solo channeling Eric Clapton during the last few seconds of a five-minute track. As always, Will Oldham's lyrics never fail to impress, and the best are front-loaded. The mystery of the opener, "Troublesome Houses," is revealed quickly ("I once loved a girl, but she couldn't take that I visited troublesome houses"). He inhabits his characters fully, and his lyrics reveal these characters' inner thoughts in intriguing fashion: some are stark and declamatory, others hurt and questioning, still others simply puzzled and helpless when faced with the hands they've been dealt. More than most Bonnie "Prince" Billy records, this is one of those austere records, filled with lyrical archaisms -- fans will think first of Master and Everyone -- but Kelly and company prove a capable foil for the monolith of Oldham's rustic songwriting and singing....full text |
| Bbc |
| The amazing productivity of Will Oldham should set alarm bells ringing, as surely the man’s quality control can’t be maintained when at least one new studio album per year has emerged since 2003’s Master and Everyone (counting 2007’s Wai Notes, alongside Dawn McCarthy). But Oldham’s Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy guise has served him well, with only 2009’s Beware the subject of a light critical lashing. And even then, he charmed as many as he cheesed off. The Wonder Show of the World is the first album to see Oldham crediting the Cairo Gang, aka Emmett Kelly and Shahzad Ismaily, as headline performers, though the pair contributed to previous long-players The Letting Go (2006), Lie Down in the Light (2008) and last outing proper, Beware. It’s a move supported by the recordings here, rich as they are with evident examples of essential support from these previously bit-part players. Ismaily provides not only bass but also vocals; Kelly, meanwhile, is regularly dominant in the mix, his nimble guitar work gracefully complementing Oldham’s warmly familiar, cracked but colourful croon. As his syllables waver, Ismaily’s drift into focus, and this dynamic, subtle though it is, is superbly realised. The spacious production lends The Wonder Show… an appealing as-live feeling, an intimacy that Oldham has often turned to his advantage in the past and does so again here. The sparse backing on Someone Coming Through allows him to turn in a moving performance buoyed by Ismaily’s lovely harmonies, and closer Kids is similarly arranged, only the lightest acoustic guitar to be heard beneath the vocal layers. The country vibes of Beware are refined on numbers like The Sounds Are Always Begging and the delectably delicate Merciless and Great. The latter is among the album’s most wonderfully lovelorn moments, which plays to Oldham’s lyrical strengths without any suggestion of schmaltz. His sentimentality may cloy with some, but few can criticise such unaffected delivery....full text |
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