Eternal and Lowdown
Ray Wylie Hubbard escaped the demons that devoured his contemporaryTownes Van Zandt, but their shadows still flicker through his songs.Eternal and Lowdownis the fifth studio disc in Hubbard's decade-long comeback; stocked with deeply personal story songs, the preceding four albums were sometimes revelatory but often more than a little, well, heavy.Eternal and Lowdownconfronts similar weighty subjects--religion, redemption, philosophy, and fulfillment, to name a few--but with a lighter touch and even a few laugh lines. This is blues music, full of black dogs, devils, gamblers, and catfish bones, but it's the celebratory kind of blues sung by a rambler that's returned, a seeker who has found. The producer and guitaristGurf Morlixis practically an equal partner throughout, his stinging electric lead lines spiking Hubbard's squalling slide runs and giving the songwriter's visions their wings.--Anders Smith-Lindall