Review

Joseph Allred is the rightful heir to the musical legacy of Robbie Basho." One could pay Allred this compliment—though he surely wouldn't want to hear it. While it might ring true given his musical qualities, he isn't deluded enough to fall for such backward-looking reverence. Quite the contrary: Joseph Allred is a sharp fellow and a highly thoughtful practitioner of his craft. And what craft is that? That of the fingerstyle guitarist—musicians who engage with the musical past and present using means that might appear historically antiquated. Religious fanaticism is running rampant everywhere, and forms of cult-like devotion are, in any case, no strangers to record collectors. Allred knows this well; passionate enough himself, he uses *The Old Gods* to meditate on the merits and perils of such acts of veneration. The album cover calls to mind one of those makeshift shelters built from sticks—structures that can serve equally well as protection or as a pile of kindling to fuel a roaring fire. Children, from kindergarten age onward, build these harmless yet ambiguous structures with great joy and varying degrees of assistance—so much for the subject of spiritual vestiges, and not just in early childhood education. Nor do I wish to condemn such activities *per se*. By all means, let the little ones play outside and, in doing so, cultivate a relationship with their inner and outer worlds—with nature, both visible and invisible; and adults, too, have been observed "bathing in the woods" and doing who-knows-what else. But what then? Ideally, as one advances in age, one also develops a relationship—if not exactly disillusioned, then at least somewhat enlightened—with the way things are. And this is precisely where Joseph Allred sits—with his 6- and 12-string guitars and a banjo—issuing a call for vigilance on the one hand, while on the other, crafting music characterized by an otherworldly beauty that speaks to the human yearning for solace and transcendence. "The Old Gods"—John Fahey, Sandy Bull, Robbie Basho, Dock Boggs, Mississippi John Hurt, and all the rest—promise salvation, or at least a momentary respite—if only for the duration of an album—from the earthly existence of an increasingly challenging, if not outright overwhelming, present. In this context, the aesthetic recourse to a vanished and supposedly better world—an imagined "Old Weird America," the often painful lived reality of which no one listening to country-blues or Appalachian folk records today actually has to endure—may indeed occasionally surface in one’s critical consciousness; yet, when it comes to the unadulterated enjoyment of the music itself, the recollection of historically harsh realities and cultural misapprehensions can, in the moment of reception, prove something of a hindrance. It is precisely these contradictions, however, that interest Allred—not mere tradition-bound idolatry. His music conveys an ambivalent relationship with (not only) musical tradition and the entire body of knowledge handed down within it—knowledge which, according to Allred’s credo, requires continuous updating and a critical, contemporary engagement. Operating within this reflective mode, Joseph Allred succeeds convincingly—both as a worthy successor to the "Old Gods" and—more importantly—as an artist standing entirely on his own terms, delivering one outstanding release after another, year after year. *The Old Gods* fits seamlessly into this lineage—of that, there is no question.