Out of tragedy comes a fitting album imbued with the spirit of the band’s co-founder.
Back in May 2021, we featured a poignant interview in these pages with Bloodkin co-founders Danny Hutchens and Eric Carter. It was poignant because on 10th May 2021 Hutchens was to die suddenly at the age of 56. As if that was not trauma enough, Carter suffered a subsequent serious accident and has had to work through PTSD and depression to finally arrive, five years on, at a position where he could create an album that serves as a celebration and commemoration of his old friend’s life.
Rather than trying to replace an irreplaceable creative partner (the pair first met when Carter was 7 years old), Carter chose to embrace the album as both a tribute and a continuation, crafting a focused, 40-minute collection of songs meant to be experienced from beginning to end, with Hutchens’ spirit woven throughout every track. The result is an album that reflects grief, healing, resilience, and the enduring bond that the pair had forged.
For those unfamiliar with Bloodkin, Flowers & Ash contains a little of everything. Crystal Ball is a loud and raucous slice of rock ‘n’ roll, while Like A Solid Team has an almost playful rhythm going on, with a touch of honky-tonk piano thrown in for good measure. What is consistent is the impressive contribution of Betsy Franck, described by Carter as a force of nature and “vocalist extraordinaire and whatever else she feels like doing”; her vocals are used to great effect and never better than on standout track Marching Band To Nowhere. At a full seven minutes, the song has a mournful, lonesome cowboy vibe, with a repetitive pedal steel riff. Here, Franck’s harmonies are a treat to behold and repeated to great effect elsewhere, most notably on Drinking Blue and But Then Again.
It was manager and long-time supporter Carison Stokes who is credited with bringing Franck into the Bloodkin orbit. Following Hutchens’ passing, it was Stokes who helped guide the band’s future, bringing Franck and guitarist and vocalist Tori Pater into the fold and helping transform what was expected to be a handful of performances into what promises now to be a thriving new era for Bloodkin. Building on a reputation forged over forty years, Flowers & Ash serves both as a fitting tribute to the band’s co-founder and as a hugely encouraging glimpse into what the latest iteration of Bloodkin still has to offer.
