On his manifold fourth album, acclaimed songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen contemplates kinship_the ways sex and violence stitch and sever the ties of family, faith, and society_with skewering satire and affection alike.

Bloodlines compiles thematically related but disparate recordings from miscellaneous sources both theatrical and historical: two songs written for plays; two full-band reprises of selections from Juarez; the irreverent hellfire-hitchhiker-on-highway ballad "Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy" (featuring Joe Ely); and the poignant eponymous ode to the arteries of ancestry and landscape (the debut recording of eight-year-old Natalie Maines, later covered by Lucinda Williams).

"No veteran country songwriter sounds more attuned to the national mood. His songs still feel like little guidebooks for staring down a harsh universe." - The Washington Post "A reigning deity of a certain kind of country music since the mid-70s." - The New York Times