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As surprising as it sounds, it looks like Bill Mallonee may have written his darkest album to date, with close competition to the debut Jugular and sophomore Driving the Nails.  Locket Full of Moonlight is explained in the liner notes by Bill himself like this: A lot of these tunes are sad, lonely and perhaps a trifle dark and some of them aren't. Perhaps more surprisingly is what makes the songs of this album dark: heartache. The question that comes to me when listening to this album is how Bill manages to convey so perfectly heartache when he has been married for such a long time, or why he would write such an album. However this is done, the album forms much like the Blister Soul album a themed album contained in the opening title track, and closing reprise.  The album is basically about a perfect love once held who has left and left with questions unanswered. The line "If I could draw for you a perfect circle, where form and substance gradually collides, it may have been your laugh, or just perhaps it was your locket; locket full of moonlight" opens the album and tells the story of that affair and the album closes with the bitter lament "never underestimate, distance is a feather or a crushing weight, somewhere in the darkest night, I lost your locket full of moonlight ." This closing reprise fades out with a mix of harmonica and noise which by itself is Bill's darkest moment and will send a shiver down your spine. 

The opening track's is musically best described as building where Summershine left off.  The second track on the album"Shellshocked" continues the desperation with the opening line say a prayer for me. "I think I'm worse off than I thought I was." This song conveys a heart pictured on the turbulent seas with the clinging hope that there are angels on those turbulent waters guiding it nonetheless. Instrumentally the sound coalesces down into a more Audible Sigh feel on "After the Glow," which is a dirge about realizing how much a love lost is really missed. Next is the very pleasant sounding "Sweetness and Light." The guitar sensibilities on this hark back to some of the talent showed on Summershine with a pleasant backing electric guitar to the more prominent acoustic. This is a very stripped down and pleasant sounding song. The songwriting displays the creativity of Bill's creation of characters who have a story to tell. The lines "you came from California by way of Tupelo, and yes there were some others before ya, but you don't need to know and it's hard to say I'll miss you girl with a lump in your throat, and me? Well, I m swimming for the shore in those sea green eyes, but I remember once before when it was all such sweetness and light," impress me so much with Bill's ability to create in depth and intriguing characters. Next up "Table for Two"sounds like the Caedmon's Call song of the same title, just ten times more desperate. The sound is actually very early period Vigilantes of Love with some guitar riffs you could find on Driving the Nails or Killing Floor. The song contains a repetitive chorus which is eerie and cutting "So close that we could touch, God how I d love to. We re a million miles apart, at my table for two." 

The second half of the album opens refreshingly with a song of hope for a troubled heart. This song is stripped down to very rootsy sounding acoustic guitar and harmonica. It sings of heartsick souls and offers the hopeful "may your burden be as nothing, with the smile of Jesus, may your heart overflow with the touch of his grace." After this song's answer to the broken heart, the album offers up a couple of refreshingly optimistic numbers which begin to form a new theme for the album. That theme being a retrospection of Bill's life with the Vigilantes of Love. Indeed the entire seems to follow this theme musically, with songs which sound like they come from many different periods of the VOL's sound. The two lines which capture this theme perfectly from "Jaws of Life" declare, "Made us some records, that really weren't that bad, made us some good friends, with that six string drag and you can tell she s in love, cause she s got that summershine face." The song also contains a reference to the Beatles songs "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" which I can't quite figure out. The next offering is the percussion led upbeat "Rearview Mirror" which is like a story of life on the road, and the hardness of life away from family. Bill compares this to a parable of Christ in the closing line of the song "I'm so bad at math when counting the costs, so you go where you will under the sign of the cross." The next song dirty job combines the two themes developing in the album with a pessimistic view of the life found as a struggling musician. The poignant and honest line 

Ten years gone and a few songs, I m drifing in this place.
Conclusions drawn in blood, are the hardest to erase.
You could call it fate, and say it could be worse,
But sometimes you gotta wonder if the whole thing was a curse. 

Locket Full of Moonlight is simply an incredible album. The darkness and desperation are so poignant and heartfelt and come through very strongly. It displays the new power Bill has found in producing album that are more real because they are just written for himself and not for a band to perform. Perhaps these are songs which Bill writes from a past experience of heartache, but that he saved to write for when he was by himself, so that he could be more personal. Either way it's amazing and I'm looking forward to much more material from the prolific Bill Mallonee.

Matt Kilgore 1/31/03