Guarapero/Lost Blues Vol 2

YUP, IT'S Wild Will again, the adopted son of Bob at his most hellfire-spittin', sickly nephew of Neil at his most 'Safeway Cart' Beckett-esque, brother figure to Bill Smog, the Handsome Family and any Gram-my loser who ever chased a ghost in anger.

As you may have gathered by the title, this album is not the full-blood follow up to last year's exquisitely bleak 'n' bawdy See A Darkness, but a collection of fresh shavings from a secret store of outtakes, lost nuggets and hitherto unheard howls.

And Will Oldham is a howl. Despite the anguished nature of his phrasing (and the boy's vocal performances on cast-down hymns like 'Drinking Woman' and 'Let The Wires Ring' do sound like missives from the rubber room at John O' Gods) his work is cut with a sly and sardonic edge. After all, it's not any sinner who can cover AC/DC's 'Big Balls' and make it sound like The Carter Family down a mineshaft.

But in the main, tunes like 'For The Mekons et al', 'Sugarcane Juice Drinker' (salvaged from the lost Steve Albini-produced, part-Dirty Three assisted Guarapero opus) and the admirably ramshackle 'Stable Will' are prime cuts of Apocalachian blues. All this and 'Some Mother's Son', which is Neil trying to rewrite 'Helpless' through a bad case of delirium tremens.

As an album entire, . . . Lost Blues 2 might be somewhat dishevelled and bedevilled. But don't let that put you off. .