If you're familiar with Bottomless Pit's excellent debut (2007's Hammer of the Gods), then Blood Under the Bridge might seem at first like a high-quality retread. While there's variety from track to track, the group continues to mine the common ground between Silkworm's tasteful classic-rock inclinations and the pastoral majesty of Seam. (It's only fair, given that three-fourths of Bottomless Pit came from those groups.) Not much has changed lyrically, either. When Tim Midgett's at the microphone, he offers disarmingly guileless phrases and thoughts, and imbues them with a heartening vulnerability. Andy Cohen's tracks feature him unspooling noir-flavored narratives whose tumbling rush of words mesh perfectly with the artful sloppiness of his guitar playing.
In that light, it almost seems appropriate for Blood Under the Bridge to feel less like an actual follow-up to Hammer, and more like the second half of a sprawling yet cohesive double-album set. Blood even seems to begin in the middle, with the understated "Winterwind". Behind that track's relaxed gait and resigned sigh, however, is an unflinching resolve that Midgett ably puts into words: "Waiting on deliverance is just like waiting on a tree that you can't get out from under." The tension exemplified in that lyric-- torn between being in a place you don't want to be, and not having the ability (or desire) to escape-- informs most of the tracks on Blood. Midgett doesn't necessarily betray his emotions when he sings, but whether he's navigating a vengeful line like "so many fuckers in this world to line up and trade for you" (from the raucous "Late"), or offering a more plaintive sentiment ("I've been waiting on the real you all along," from "Kiss Them All"), that push-pull impulse is always evident.
It might be harder to keep up with what Cohen's singing about on "Summerwind"-- he spends most of the track's four minutes spitting out lyrics in a "Subterranean Homesick Blues" style-- you only have to catch a couple of fragments to realize the song's nostalgic regret. He's a little more to the point on album closer "38 Souls", painting a portrait about a punch-the-clock grim-reaper type whose frustration is best expressed through Cohen's holler and intermittent bursts of over-amplified guitar.
Ending on this burst of seemingly impotent anger is where Blood best distinguishes itself from its predecessor. The closing track on Hammer of the Gods, "Sevens Sing", offered a despondency similar to "38 Souls", but in a more restrained and resigned manner. The difference between that song's mood and the cautious hope offered on album opener "The Cardinal Movements" could be measured in light years. Blood, on the other hand, lets the quiet resolve voiced in its opener find a more insistent and active voice at its ending. It might be nothing more than fitful raging against the dying of the light, but sometimes that rage is what's needed most of all.
