Bloodlines

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, Allen 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 Allen's wife Jo Harvey Allen, questions Jesus' love for humanity. Tragicomic vignettes like "There Oughta Be a Law Against Sunny Southern California" and "Cantina Carlotta" (both remade from Allen's 1975 debut, Juarez) also touch on the same themes in more idiosyncratic ways. And for all its lyrical strength, Bloodlines is equally impressive musically. Reeling back the rock edge of Smokin' the Dummy without returning to the acoustic folk setting of most of Lubbock (On Everything), Bloodlines mixes country, rock, folk, and oddball jazz like Music From Big Pink-era Band without the "Americana" fetish. A satisfying and often fascinating album, Bloodlines is one of Allen's best.