Baby, They Told Us We Would Rise Again

On Baby, Bloodkin are at a hot peak in their odyssey, opening with the hypnotic hell of "The Viper," a catalog of addictions checked off by Hutchens in a belly-to-the-bar drawl against a '70s-Neil Young tornado of banjo, dirty guitars and prairie-chapel organ. The spike and slash of Carter and Eric Marinez's guitars in "Wait Forever" suggest Keith Richards and Ron Wood - armed with Civil War bayonets. "Heavy With Child" and "Little Margarita" combine the uncomplicated surge of early Wilco and the sunshine soul of the Allman Brothers Band on Eat a Peach. There may be no better description of America's original family values than Hutchens' reference in the acid-country jangle of "Rhododendron" to a "touch of Old Testament iron/And a whiff of wild rhododendron." He and Carter certainly make no excuses for how long its taken them to hit daylight. "We were inspired or stupid or a little of each," Hutchens sings over the gnarled twang in "A Place to Crash." "We were just country boys speaking in tongues." On Baby, They Told Us We Would Rise Again, Bloodkin talk loud and straight.