Bill Callahan 'Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle'

Bill Callahan’s first album under his own name, rather than ‘Smog’, was a disappointment when compared to his previous work. ‘Woke On A Whaleheart’ had some great moments but was an odd mish-mash of styles and moods and never settled enough to be a rewarding listen.

Here, from the opening ‘Jim Cain’, Callahan seems to have returned to playing to his strengths. Most of the songs here are grounded in acoustic guitar with piano and strings as embelishments, similar to the sound of his last great record, 2005’s ‘A River Ain’t Too Much To Love’. He sets the tone with the lyric “I used to be darker/ then I got lighter/ then I got dark again”. While this is no return to the misery of ‘The Doctor Came At Dawn’, the occasional frivolity of his last record is gone.

He hits the ground running too. ‘Jim Cain’ is a beautiful introduction and ‘Eid Ma Clack Shaw’ which follows is marvellous. Wanting to find a way to “shake a memory”, Callahan dreams the perfect song and then presents it: a couple of lines of gibberish. It all sounds a lot better on record than I can describe it here. Some traditionally dusty country ballads follow, with Callahan’s voice as low as it has ever been, rightfully taking centre stage and delivering some truly great lines and imagery. “I used to be sorta blind, now I can sorta see” he sings on ‘Rococo Zephyr’, a lovely, lazy ballad with some harmony vocals. ‘My Friend’, is unusually jaunty with predominant electric guitar and drums but the lyric is a tribute to Callahan’s dog and he delivers the hook line with a growl.

Perhaps best of all is ‘Too Many Birds’, which starts off as a simple tale of a blackbird looking for a place to rest but builds with the help of some graceful cello into a stirring crescendo with Callahan gradually unravelling the line “if you could only stop your heartbeat for one heartbeat”. It is soaring, affecting music on a par with the best songs he has ever written.

The album closes with ‘Faith/Void’, a lengthy coda with the repeated line “Its time to put God away”. Callahan sings of almost everything under the sun in the 48 minutes of this record. Of love, loss, death, friendship and as always the natural world, birds looking for a home is a recurring image. He has created a consistent sounding record that will move and inspire you. Undoubtably a career highlight from one of the best songwriters working today. Album of the year so far.

9.7

[‘Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle’ is out now on drag city on cd/lp]