The second installment of Will Oldham songs recorded under his nom de plume of Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Ease Down the Road finds Oldham playing his quintessential role as the crack-voiced acoustic troubadour. He is backed by a drunken choir and a rickety orchestra featuring, among others, brother Ned Oldham, avant-garde director Harmony Korine, Papa M's David Pajo, and a gaggle of longtime musical comrades from Oldham's first group, Palace. In comparison to the first Bonnie "Prince" album--the spectral I See a Darkness--the mood is warm, playful, and concerned mainly with love, infidelity, and the joys of the flesh; "She's a fine looking lady, and she likes to go down on me," croaks Oldham on "A King at Night," "And I like to go down on her too..." Lewdness aside, though, there's much to recommend Oldham's latest incarnation as a serious artist, rather than some lo-fi freak, suitable only for a niche audience; the lazy, sleep-encrusted love balladry of "Break of Day" drags on the castoffs of a raggedly clothed Bob Dylan, while "After I Made Love to You" gently embraces the gospel tradition, albeit a gospel to the joys of infidelity, with Oldham whispering of "doing something filthy / in a rented room tonight".
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