This first taste of Bloodkin’s latest album, ‘Enemy Within’, is a song that works on several levels. The most honest and immediate one is the sound that greets you, a lovely, purposefully ragged blend of raw, rootsy rock and roll which adds all manner of awesome elements – engaging and elegant guitar motifs, sing-along harmonies writ large and lovely, pliable dynamic shape, bluesy breaks and finally sassy and seductive sax – as it moves through the musical landscape. Music made in the spirit of everyone from The Stones to Petty to even Thunders solo work.
But at the heart of the song is a tribute: this will be the band’s first album since the passing of Daniel Hutchens, who, along with Eric Carter, co-captained the good ship Bloodkin for four decades. And rather than try to replace him physically, although how could you replace a friend and songwriting partner of 40-plus years is inconceivable, this song, and indeed the album that spawned it, has his spirit running through every sonic move and musical groove.
Not only a fantastic track, and one that speaks volumes about a great album to follow, but a brilliant celebration of one of the most enduring creative partnerships in Americana music. Such is the deftness with which Carter enters this new chapter that even with Hutchens no longer physically part of Bloodkin, he is present in every moment of it.
