11. Wolfroy Goes to Town (2011)

Usually when musicians take a stab at a particular style then fail to achieve greatness, they either abandon that line of attack or keep going down the same road until nothing but oblivion awaits them (see Weezer). But Oldham has never let critics guide his artistic journey. And like on the excellent Beware, when he returned to the Nashville sound that failed him on Sings Greatest Music, here Oldham returns to the quiet, earthy, simplicity of his 2003 misstep Master and Everyone — but with radically-improved results.

The stand-up bass and subtle orchestral flourishes bring Van Morrison’s bucolic Astral Weeks to mind. But these are no loose, languid love songs. Sussing out a central theme of the lyrics isn’t easy, but Oldham is clearly concerned with notions of power and oppression as on “New Whaling” where he sings of the “awful actions” of a king amid swirling call-and-response vocal harmonies. On the somber “There Will Be Spring,” creatures “run in fear from you and me.” It’s hard to tell if he’s singing about regimes or relationships, but Oldham is clearly made uncomfortable by his strength, singing “Nothing is better, nothing is best” on “We Are Unhappy,” his most direct expression of existential grief since “I See a Darkness.” Wolfroy Goes to Tow, like so much of Oldham’s work, has a tendency to lull the listener into complacency with its beauty. But on repeated listens, the record’s dark heart bubbles to the surface.