Blood Sucking Maniacs

Blood Sucking Maniacs, the Allen family band, helmed by patriarch and matriarch Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen, spans five generations and 121 years, including (among others) their sons Bukka and Bale Allen; grandsons Kru, Sled, and Calder Allen; Panhandle Mystery Band mainstays Charlie Sexton, Lloyd Maines, and Richard Bowden, and frequent collaborator Will Sexton. The wild and wide-ranging songs collected on their eponymous album are miscellaneous and multiplex, comprising heartrending ballads and arch in-jokes on a spectrum from sublime to unabashedly sentimental. The unifying principle here is not so much blood harmony as blood entropy. Get sucked.

For fans of Terry Allen, Calder Allen, Jo Harvey Allen, David Byrne, Bill Callahan, Guy Clark, Bob Dylan, The Flatlanders, Randy Newman, John Prine, Silver Jews/Purple Mountains, Townes Van Zandt., Kurt Vile, Wilco.