Anyone who saw the Tortoise and Daniel Lanois collaborative tour last year witnessed how explosive Tortoise could be as a backing band, and anyone who listened to Bonnie "Prince" Billy's work last year with Matt Sweeney on the Superwolf album heard a match made in heaven. So when news started surfacing that Tortoise & Will Oldham were working on a covers album together, I got all sorts of excited.

It comes as a surprise then that The Brave and the Bold is a bit of a disappointment. Musically, I have to wonder why Tortoise is even on board for this project. I mean really, if you would have told me that Captain Geetch and the Shrimp Shack Shooters were laying down the rhythm, I would have had an easier time believing it. Hardly anywhere here do Tortoise actually make their presence felt. The Brave and the Bold certainly feels more than anything like a vehicle for Oldham to render some bizarre interpretations of other artists work than a full fledged collaboration with Tortoise, and holy Jebus, are some of these choices and arrangements strange. These covers run the gamut from sheer genus to pure, head-scratching "what the hell were they smoking" curiosities?

On the genius side of the ledger, The Brave and the Bold starts boldly enough with a brilliant interpretation of Milton Nascimento's "Cravo e Canela." Oldham even nails all the Portuguese singing to a tee. That momentum, however comes to a grinding halt with "Thunder Road" one of the most shambling messes of a Springsteen cover ever recorded. Other covers here lack complete focus as well. A cover of Devo's "That's Pep!" and Lungfish's "Love Is Love" are just head-on collisions that smack of the worst kind of "strange for the sake of strange" self indulgence and do the originals no justice.

Still for every left field Lassie land mine, there's also a diamond in the rough. Don Williams' "Pancho" is a perfect fit for Oldham's voice and Richard Thompson's "Calvary Cross" gives Tortoise a chance to have fun with western style guitar. Surprisingly the song that allows both acts to truly shine is an ambient keyboard driven version of Elton John's "Daniel." While The Brave and the Bold is at times an interesting work, I think it's safe to say that it won't be remembered by fans of either act as much of a career high-point - but as a one-off project, it does contain enough worthwhile moments to merit a spot in their collections