Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 6 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 6
  2. Negative: 0 out of 6
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  1. Uncut
    Apr 11, 2019
    80
    Trent and Hearst have always been keen storytellers, digging deep into characters at loose ends, laying them out in the lyrics and then finding new depths and new sympathies in the performances. [May 2019, p.28]
  2. Apr 11, 2019
    80
    As you’ve come to expect, the duo writes their usual honest, literate and narrative lyrics, this time perhaps with more intense personal themes. ... Meanwhile, the backing music, often cinematic in scope, can range for gritty and thrashing to ethereal and provocative.
  3. Apr 11, 2019
    80
    Not every cut bristles with this sense of adventure -- there are still plenty of stark, plaintive ballads that provide the record with a sensitive, quivering foundation -- but by balancing their familiar backwoods brooding with fearless rock & roll, they've wound up with an album with a wild, twitching heart.
  4. Apr 11, 2019
    80
    By Blood is a great rock and roll record that flies by in under 40 minutes. There's not a wasted note here.
  5. 60
    Although the style is more Knitters than X, the rawness to these tunes makes Shovels & Rope seem like ornery, indie folk-rockers.
  6. Mojo
    Apr 11, 2019
    60
    As always, S&R stress character studies, from the envious and deluded guy in Mississippi Nuthin' to the broke-down elder in Hammer. [May 2019, p.94]

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