BLACK VINYL 2xLP. INCLUDES DIGITAL DOWNLOAD.
"Iconic and iconoclastic Texan songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen’s heartbreaking, hilarious new album, his first set of new songs since 2013's Bottom of the World, features the full Panhandle Mystery Band, including co-producer Charlie Sexton (Dylan, Bowie, Blaze), Shannon McNally, and Jo Harvey Allen; mainstays Bukka Allen, Richard Bowden, and Lloyd Maines; and co-writes with Joe Ely and Dave Alvin. The connections to Melville’s masterpiece are metaphorical and allusive, as elusive as the White Whale. The masterly spiritual successor to Lubbock (on everything), Just Like Moby Dick casts its net wide for wild stories, depicting, among other monstrous things, Houdini in existential crisis, the death of the last stripper in town, bloodthirsty pirates (in a pseudo-sequel to Brecht and Weill's "Pirate Jenny"), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (in the "American Childhood" suite), a vampire-infested circus, mudslides and burning mobile homes, and all manner of tragicomic disasters, abandonments, betrayals, bad memories, failures, and fare-thee-wells. The deluxe tip-on gatefold 2xLP package features lyrics, color labels, high-res Bandcamp download code, three sides of music, and a fourth-side vinyl etching artwork by Allen. The gatefold CD edition includes a six-panel lyrics insert with different artwork by Allen. Allen's songs extract strangeness from the known world & use it as a means of acquiring greater knowledge ... which is as good definition of wisdom as any. – The New YorkerHe's pretty close to a master lyricist. – The New York TimesRiveting. – NPRStunning. – PitchforkAural brilliance. – The WireUniformly eccentric & uncompromising, savage & beautiful, literate & guttural. – Rolling Stone Allen carries the dust of West Texas in his throat, with a voice like a coyote's yip & a twang like wind-thrummed barbed wire. – Bandcamp DailyThere may be no greater maverick in all of country music. – AllMusicA true legend & a hero. I love Terry's music so much. – Kurt Vile"