Richard Buckner - Our Blood

  by Daniel Cressey

published: 11 / 10 / 2011

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'More Blood' is the first album in five years from Richard Buckner and, to the surprise of no one who has heard his previous material, it confirms again that he has one of the most beguiling and original voices in alt-country. Buckner has professed that he “doesn’t get” the alt-country label, and there’s certainly more going on in each of his songs than in many of the vaguely identikit albums often granted that label. But, for the lack of anything to truly describe him - short of the un-illuminating 'great' - it'll have to do. If the songs here come over as dark and slightly frustrated that might be because those years of work haven’t gone easy. He apparently lost multiple takes in various equipment failures, and the police turning up to ask him about a corpse that appeared near his home can’t have helped ease his mind any. As ever his compositions swirl around beautifully, with occasional layers appearing and dissipating around his ever present guitar, threatening to coalesce but rarely solidifying. But the thing that is most striking about Buckner is still his voice. Other singer-songwriter types might have superficially the same low, slow tone. It's almost a given for quiet, wistful guitar music. No one manages to make this as smoothly haunting as Buckner though. The songs here seemingly effortlessly (but via many trials apparently) turn melancholy into something more beautiful than is managed by just about any other singer. His non-linear songs may not have easily remembered hooks and choruses, but ‘Our Blood’ is another glorious piece of work that only gets better with each listen, and it sinks its teeth in with dark efficiency despite its eschewing of those conventions.

Track Listing:-

1 Traitor
2 Escape
3 Thief
4 Collusion
5 Ponder
6 Witness
7 Confession
8 Hindsight
9 Gang
10 Thief
11 Witness
12 Gang

Band Links:-

https://twitter.com/bucknertweets
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Richard-Buckner/361420247300608
https://www.mergerecords.com/richard-buckner
http://www.richardbuckner.com/

Label Links:-

http://decorrecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Decor-records-135039223266792/
https://twitter.com/decorrecords

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