Wolfroy Goes to Town is a studio album by singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 Will Oldham

Will Oldham

Will Oldham , better known by the stage name Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music...

, released on Drag City

Drag City (record label)

Drag City is a Chicago-based independent record label. It was established with a Royal Trux release in 1990 in Chicago, Illinois by Dan Koretzky and Dan Osborn.Drag City specializes in experimental indie rock acts...

. Will's backing band included Emmett Kelly and Angel Olsen, among others.

Reception

Critical response to Wolfroy Goes to Town was generally positive. At Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, which assigns a normalized

Standard score

In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...

 rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average

Weighted mean

The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...

 score of 74 ("Generally favorable reviews"), based on 10 professional reviews. Anthony Carew, writing for the Alt Music Guide, declared that the album was Oldham's "best, or at least most beautiful, since 1999's I See a Darkness". John Mulvey, in Uncut Magazine, noted that the album's "mood is even more quiet, delicate and sepulchral than that of The Wonder Show of the World", and approved of the sense of "unflinching intimacy, extreme focus... finely-wrought songs whittled down to their essence, then allowed to unravel in the most stately and unhurried way." Writing for Dusted, Joe Bernardi also commented on the album's starkness, suggesting that Wolfroy Goes To Town is "the sound of a lack, a series of sparse arrangements complementing desolate lyrics about rural desolation... The result makes for a listening experience that’s intense and potentially awkward, but one that also somehow rings true." At No Ripcord, David John Wood compared the album to The Wicker Man, advising listeners not to "listen in the dark."

Track listing

All songs written by Will Oldham.

1. "No Match"
2. "New Whaling"
3. "Time To Be Clear"
4. "New Tibet"
5. "Black Captain"
6. "Cows"
7. "There Will Be Spring"
8. "Quail And Dumplings"
9. "We Are Unhappy"
10. "Night Noises"

Personnel

Bass – Danny Kiely
Drums, Percussion – Van Campbell
Electric Piano, Synthasizer, Pump Organ, Vocals [Extra Singing] – Ben Boye
Guitars, Mandolin, Harmony Vocals – Emmett Kelly

Emmett Kelly

Emmett Leo Kelly , a native of Sedan, Kansas, was an American circus performer, who created the memorable clown figure "Weary Willie", based on the hobos of the Depression era.- Career development :...

Percussion, Guitar, Vocals – Shahzad Ismaily
Vocals – Angel Olsen

Illustration – Sammy Harkham

Sammy Harkham

Sammy Harkham is an American cartoonist and editor, best known for editing the influential Kramer's Ergot alternative comics anthology....

Mastered – Paul Oldham
Photography (Back Cover) – Shane Spaulding