'Master and Everyone' is a departure of sorts for Will Oldham, a.k.a. Bonny Prince Billy. It's a much cleaner album than those before it, both in sound and content: thereís a noticeable absence of humorous and dirty lyrics. Of his usual musical cohorts, Oldham is joined on this album only by his brother Paul; no David Pajo of Slint, or even other brother Ned Oldham. Instead, this album features and was recorded by members of Lambchop. It's not surprising then that this album sounds more like a Nashville country record.
Oldham shows that he is constantly able to come up with something new, even within the confined boundaries of his sound. This is a soft album, with no songs that ever hit a rocking pitch, and Oldhamís trademark cracking voice is absent, simply because he never gets that loud.
It ends up being among Oldham's more beautiful albums, even if it lacks the dirty emotion of some of the others. Like with his last album, songs are taking a more conventional structure, and sound more like standard folk or country songs. This is in no way a bad thing. You won't find the bare-wire emotion of his earlier records like 'Arise', Therefore, or the cryptic gloom of 'I See A Darkness,' but those characteristics are all there, only modified and sculpted together to make a more polished sound. He's still the melancholy prince, he's just a bit older now.
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