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killedincars<\/a>:<\/p>\n Big Blood – Dark Country Magic<\/a><\/strong> (free dl) (Dontrustheruin<\/a>, 2010<\/a>)<\/p>\n In writing this review, I attempted to count how many albums Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella have released over the past year, but shit\u2019s just not worth tabulating. I can no longer keep up with what iteration of those Portland folk are still together (are Cerberus Shoal and Fire on Fire still active???) and when and who released what. For simplicity, let us assume that the number of releases Caleb and Colleen have secreted throughout the years is the very technical quantity \u2018fuck load.\u2019 I can almost surely (my faculties aren\u2019t that certain) count on one hand how many albums Caleb, Colleen, Asian Mae, Rose Philistine, and miscellaneous strange Maine folk have put out under the Big Blood moniker this year\u2014Dead Songs<\/em> (Time-Lag), Night Terrors on the Isle of Louis Hardin<\/em> (Cabin Floor Esoterica), Operators and Things<\/em> (Dontrustheruin), PM50<\/em> (a compilation for Peasant Magik on which they appear), and now Dark Country Magic<\/em> (Dontrustheruin) [that\u2019s five, by the way]. So one could remark that that\u2019s a mighty large number of albums for Big Blood this year, but given their prolific history, 2010 has just been another year\u2019s work.<\/p>\n But one especially unique aspect to Big Blood\u2019s 2010 output is how stylistically diverse it was. By their standards, Dead Songs<\/em> was a straight-laced rocker, whereas the drone-folk of Night Terrors<\/em> was their furtherest left of the dial and Operators and Things<\/em> found Big Blood in their comfortable \u2018freakier and folkier than Devendraohyoualreadyknowthejoke\u2019 territory. This new venture, Dark Country Magic<\/em>, is nestled between the aforementioned three. It combines the the group\u2019s trademark weirdness with the strong, conventional songwriting of Dead Songs<\/em>. Their magnificent song crafting shines through in more than one instance, but \u201cShe-Wander(er)\u201d is without a doubt the highlight, another \u2018track of the year\u2019 in a long line of stellar Big Blood cuts (\u201cSong for Baltimore,\u201d \u201cA Hole In One,\u201d Oh Country (Skin & Bones),\u201d etc.).<\/p>\n I never noticed until recently, but Big Blood are a band greatly influenced by their children, with references constantly popping up in Colleen\u2019s lyrics. But not until Dark County Magic<\/em> was this altogether obvious to me, with the critical mass of adorableness that is \u201cMoo-Hoo\u201d and the lovely collage insert of what I presume to be Caleb and Colleen\u2019s children. While Big Blood may often employ dark themes, there never is a sense of despair in their music; there is always a shrining light. I\u2019m constantly overwhelmed by an incredible joy for existence when listening, almost reborn. I think the influence of their children, the purity of youth, is partly responsible for this singularly positive aesthetic, and, in turn, why I love them so. As Danny said on his facebook, \u201cBand of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" killedincars:<\/p>\n Big Blood – Dark Country Magic (free dl) (Dontrustheruin, 2010)\n
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\nIn writing this review, I attempted to count how many albums Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella have released over the past year, but shit\u2019s just not worth tabulating. I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[179,180,134,138,109,181],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rss","tag-big-blood","tag-free","tag-free-download","tag-killedincars","tag-music","tag-submission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cesnak.org\/csnk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}