Optimistic title notwithstanding, Bonnie Prince Billy is decidedly pessimistic on We are Together Again. 

“The human times have come and gone/we must accept our rule is done,” Billy sings in summing up the LP’s mood on “Life is Scary Horses.”

That mood is bleak; Billy’s assessment of the 2020s is of an era where loneliness and despair are soundtracked with strings; horns, both classical and mariachi; accordion, piano and Moog synthesizer; banjo and bouzouki; and more familiar popular-music implements of guitar, bass, drums and percussion. With tempos mostly dragging, Billy arranged these instruments to create 10 bumpy melodies that sonically illustrate these tumultuous times. 

His frightened-but-determined voice, meanwhile, is supported by a revolving door of female singers whose vocals are unsynchronized by design, putting hazards in the harmonic road, even on relatively sunny numbers like “Hey Little,” which finds the narrator pinning his hopes on his daughter. 

If that doesn’t get the message across, titles like “They Keep Trying to Find You,” “Davey Dead” and “The Children are Sick” do.