ALBUM REVIEW: Bill Callahan – YTI⅃AƎЯ

Drag City

Released: 14.10.22

Bill Callahan has been generously trotting out wonderful records under his own name for the best part of 20 years now, usually reliably, peppered with the odd modern-classic, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle being the most obvious case in point.

YTI⅃AƎЯ doesn’t quite reach the highs of SIWWWAE, or even 202’s Gold Record. It has a jammier sensibility comparable to later period, Smog-abrasive saxophones punctuate Naked Souls, erratic percussion formulate the hook in Drainface, indeed there is a consistent emotional hardness to this record that makes it an outlier in Bill’s catalogue, with some emotional levity only introduced in the final song, Last Soul At The Party. It’s a trickier nut to crack than a lot of his releases, but penetrate the touch skin and there’s ample reward for the patient listener.