CD released: May 06, 2022
On his manifold fourth album, acclaimed songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen contemplates kinship-the ways sex and violence stitch and sever the ties of family, faith, and society-with skewering satire and affection alike. Bloodlines compiles thematically related but disparate recordings from miscellaneous sources both theatrical and historical: two songs written for plays; two full-band reprises of selections from Juarez; the irreverent hellfire-hitchhiker-on-highway ballad "Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy" (featuring Joe Ely); and the poignant eponymous ode to the arteries of ancestry and landscape (the debut recording of eight-year-old Natalie Maines, later covered by Lucinda Williams). This first-ever vinyl reissue, remastered from the original analog tapes, includes a gatefold jacket and inner sleeve with restored, new, and alternate artwork and photos by Allen and friends; an insert with lyrics and original notes; and a high-res download code. No veteran country songwriter sounds more attuned to the national mood. His songs still feel like little guidebooks for staring down a harsh universe. - The Washington Post A reigning deity of a certain kind of country music since the mid-70s. - The New York Times It has always been a fool's errand to frame Allen in terms of other artists-there was nobody like him before he showed up, and the subsequent 40 years have been equally light on plausible peers. - Uncut The kind of singular American artist who expresses the fundamental weirdness of his country. - The Wire One of the most compelling American songwriters working today. He is making the most unique art-pop of our time . The bloodlines coursing through this alternately rueful and rowdy work are the marks of blood as a sign of family lineage, an effect of violence, an emblem of sex and death, the price of sacrifice and sacrament. - L.A. Herald Examiner (1984) I've never heard such a consistent assortment of unpopular styles. - Dave Hickey (1983) |
