While Bonnie ›Prince‹ Billy cuddles up to his guitar strings, Sarah Louise Callaway strokes her violin to wipe away her tears of world-weariness, and Dane Water consoles those who need comforting. »Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You« is not so much a story as its is a room where people go to have a good cry together. It couldn’t be any better than with some folksy Johnny Cash melancholy, a little accompanying guitar and – of course – the »Willow, Pine and Oak« that Will Oldham sings about crooning through his beard into the microphone. Between the »Trees of Hell« and the »Queen of Sorrow«, a violin slips in between the bars of blissful sadness.
Yet »Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You« is a joyful elegy that somehow wants to tell a story about being together. The musician, who produces with a certain alacrity, does not add anything new, but for all that it is pleasantly ordinary. Those who feel at home in the countryside will find a familiar retreat here. One thing is clear though: the American will keep dropping more »bananas« from the tree once all the secrets have been revealed.
