Terry Allen & The Panhandle Mystery Band - Bloodlines LP
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 PostA reigning deity of a certain kind of country music since the mid-70s. – The New York TimesIt 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. – UncutThe kind of singular American artist who expresses the fundamental weirdness of his country. – The WireOne 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)