From the Vaults Friday Bill Fay Time of the Last Persecution 1971

The Year: 1971
The Album: Bill Fay, Time of the Last Persecution
Who it Influenced: Damon & Naomi, Jim O'Rourke, Wilco, Damien Jurado, Okkervil River, Destroyer

Once upon a time, I assembled a list of biblically-influenced indie records, a look at a slew of '90s/'00s albums that found alt acts, both secular and faithful, taking cues from the Good Book as inspiration for works of devotion, satire, and/or transcendence.

Bill Fay's 1971 freakout Time of the Last Persecution is a spiritual antecedent (so to speak) to these works. Inspired by the Books of Daniel and Revelation, it's a hymnal for the imminent End Times; a singer-songwriter album from a singer-songwriter whose faith, in the space of one album has gone from reassuring to terrifying.

As his sad piano songs are laced with lacerating electric guitar and free-jazz horns, Fay sings constantly of Christ and Caesar, two symbols of mankind's capacity for kindness and cruelty. There's no a doubt in his voice that a rapture is looming —and, in 1971, there were plenty of cultural cues that the end of the world could be nigh— and that sincerity carries Time of the Last Persecution to some wild places.

• Full review: Bill Fay, Time of the Last Persecution