March 29th, 2002
Will Oldham changes monikers like most artists change album titles: He's been Palace, Palace Songs and Palace Brothers, and now he's just Will Oldham. Of course, he picked the most inappropriate time to change his act's name; his first full-length "solo" album features a full backing band. (Meanwhile, all but one of the songs on his masterpiece Palace Brothers featured nothing but Oldham and an acoustic guitar.) Unfortunately, the 12 pop-rock songs on Joya mostly just mar Oldham's oddly skewed songwriting and distinctive vocal approach: When he's truly solo, with just Oldham and a hastily strummed guitar, his unselfconsciously squeaky, cracked voice sounds intimate to the point of profundity; his delivery sounds beautifully heartfelt. Singing in front of the competent players on Joya, however, his songs just sound like the work of a low-key pop-rock band with a bad singer. Whether or not Oldham's music works invariably depends on the fine line between winsome beauty and awkward dreariness; Joya is one of his rare albums that ends up on the wrong side of that line.
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