REVIEWSRichard Buckner, ‘Our Blood’

7

• SPIN Rating:7 of 10

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Release Date: August 2, 2011
Label: Merge

"I guess I'm the onethey warned you about," Richard Buckner acknowledges on Our Blood, summing up in one long-suffering moan his entire discography of dangerous romance. Brooding and oblique, Buckner's first album in five years again seeks its pleasures inthe shadows beside the bar, framed by desolate electronics far removed from the singer-songwriter's '90s alt-country roots. With pedal steel byBuddy Cage (Dylan'sBlood on the Tracks),ominous percussion by Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, and Buckner's usual subtle craftsmanship, he creates wasted-night rhapsodies that demand you lean in close -- however warily.