Singer/songwriter Bill Callahan follows-up his acclaimed 2013 release, Dream River, with his fifth solo album, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest – an album that focuses more inward than previous releases. In the 5+ years since his last album, Callahan has done a lot of living: he married in 2014, welcomed a son into the world, and lost his mother in 2018. Naturally, these experiences shaped the music found on Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, providing small vignettes into life and death which is a contrast to his typically more expansive albums. Album highlights include: the smoky goodbye song “Angela”; a farewell song to suppressed anger and toxic masculinity in “The Ballad of the Hulk”; a gentle song about the nature of true love with “What Comes After Certainty”; the heartfelt elegy “When We Let Go”; a cover of the traditional folk song, “Lonesome Valley”; the intoxicating love song “What Comes After Certainty”; and the charming track about a wanderer putting down roots in “Tugboats and Tumbleweeds.” Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest is a welcome return and breath of fresh air from an artist that keeps getting better with each release. – Written by JFelton
SIMILAR | Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Damien Jurado, Cass McCombs, Silver Jews, Smog