A remarkable improvement over 1980's extremely spotty
Smokin' the Dummy
, 1983's
Bloodlines
often rises to the level of
Terry Allen
's 1979 masterpiece
Lubbock (On Everything)
. The pantheistic hymn that opens and closes the album (the first in a simple and gorgeous voice and accordion setting, the last in a swelling choral version with a full band) sets a tone for the entire song cycle, one hinted at in the cover photo of a tattered painting of a lamb (a common Christ symbol) and explicated in the second track, the joyously heretical shaggy-dog story
"Gimme a Ride to Heaven, Boy,"
in which
Allen
gives a lift to a hitchhiker who turns out to be
Jesus
, who promptly pulls a gun and takes off with his wheels ("The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and tonight my son, he's gonna use your car"). Throughout the rest of the album,
returns almost obsessively to the theme of religion's place in the modern world.
"Ourland"
sets images of the atrocities committed on both sides of the religious conflict in Northern Ireland to a bitterly ironic Celtic death march, while
"Oh Hally Lou,"
the
gospel
-style theme song for a play by
's wife
Jo Harvey Allen
, questions
' love for humanity. Tragicomic vignettes like
"There Oughta Be a Law Against Sunny Southern California"
and
"Cantina Carlotta"
(both remade from
's 1975 debut,
Juarez
) also touch on the same themes in more idiosyncratic ways. And for all its lyrical strength,
is equally impressive musically. Reeling back the
rock
edge of
without returning to the acoustic
folk
setting of most of
,
mixes
country
, and oddball
jazz
like
Music From Big Pink
-era
Band
without the "
Americana
" fetish. A satisfying and often fascinating album,
is one of
's best. ~ Stewart Mason