It’s easy to misconstrue the title of Scout Niblett’s latest release, This Fool Can Die Now, as some declaratory statement, announcing the end for some hapless fool who has stumbled into the skeletal, bloozy, and monochrome forest in which Niblett's been hunting since 2001’s Sweet Heart Fever. For Christ’s sake, the cover art has her decked out in a cape, standing on the surface of a lake with lasers shooting out of her eyes and a grin on her face. A religious person would understandably pray for whomever is at the focus of that gaze.
It’s surprising, then, to hear her croon on Fool’s “Kiss,” “If I’m to be the fool/ Then so it be/ This fool can die now”, with equal parts soul and bitterness wrapped in her voice. She’s the fool, declaring her own death -- a significant change of tone for someone who sneered, “Fuck treasure island” on 2005’s Kidnapped By Neptune. Then again, the best tracks on This Fool Can Die Now are all about a change of tone, one that is facilitated considerably by Will Oldham’s presence.
Oldham, who is looking more and more like this generation’s Lee Hazlewood after these collaborations and his 2006 work with soul singer Candi Staton, duets with Niblett on four tracks of Fool, and each track could easily be considered the best work of Scout’s career thus far. The record starts with the one-two punch of “Do You Want To Be Buried With My People?” and “Kiss.” The former starts out in a particularly Gothic tradition, but slowly morphs into Niblett and Oldham delivering devotionals in a sultry tone over a bending guitar line -- Bonnie “Prince” Billy has never sounded so sexual. Album highlight “Kiss,” on the other hand, is a torch song of the grandest kind, bringing Scout to cry desperately, “Don’t break my dreams”. The duo’s renditions of Marilyn Monroe’s “River of No Return” and Van Morrison’s “Comfort You” are slightly less theatrical, but still satisfying in context.
Of course, this is a Scout Niblett record, and even though this new melodic shift creeps into one or two of the non-Oldham-bolstered tracks (check out the simple ballad “Elizabeth (Black Hearted Queen),” with its walking guitar melody and understated vocals), she’s still just as imposing and noisy elsewhere. Tracks like the yelping “Let Thine Heart Be Warmed” and the sprawling, desert landscape of “Nevada” are enjoyable, but it all gets too old too fast, especially on non-starters like “Yummy” and “Dinosaur Egg.”
Scout’s records have a tendency to feel like they’re a lot longer than they really are, due to their repetitive, stubborn sameness. Except for the duets with Will Oldham, this one really is no different. Indeed, even the more die-hard of Scout Niblett fans (do they exist?) will walk away from Fool yearning for a full-length collaboration with the Bearded Bonnie himself. Don’t tell that to Scout, though; she might just take those lasers away from her own heart and turn them on you.
More about: Scout Niblett
