AMG Review of Blood & Mood

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

Never a band to be comfortable in a single category, on Blood & Mood the Bad Livers are even more perverse than usual -- any illusions of bluegrass traditionalism that might have remained from their earlier work are here blown apart by found-sound sampling ("Looky Here"), East European time signatures ("New York City"), and flat-out punk aggression ("I'm Losing"). Granted, the accent is still strictly hillbilly, the chord progressions are as often Nashville as New York, and that's some genuine high-lonesome harmonizing on "One More Night in a Hotel." But this is most definitely not bluegrass. What it is exactly is unclear -- but it sure is fun.