Perhaps the best thing about country-punk — or cow punk, if you prefer — is how little it has to do with Nashville’s polite reading of country history. Groups such as Rank and File, Jason and the Scorchers and Blood on the Saddle exploit country’s rawer and more evocative outer regions — Memphis rockabilly, Texas and Bakersfield honky tonk, mountain bluegrass and folk and the cinematic west. Blood on the Saddle’s self-titled debut album is a joyously out-of-kilter appropriation of some of the wooliest country motifs, all in service of full-tilt punk rock.

This Los Angeles quartet plays everything — twisted hoedowns, locomotive rockabilly and torturous country-blues — at a downhill speed measured in supersonic clip-clops and galloping thumps. Its theme song, “Blood on the Saddle,” ties one of those stirring TV western hemes to a punky guitar thrash punctuated by blood-curdling “ki-yi- yeahs.” On a seriously rhythmic “Freight Train,” Greg Davis’ flat rasp and Annette Zilinkas’ off-key wail create slightly dissonant harmonies reminiscent of X.

Lest you think this band is playing this all for the sheer hee-haw of it, consider the album’s best cut, “I’ve Never Been Married.” The song, a desperate plea enhanced by Davis’ eerie crying falsetto and scary slide guitar, is the kind of haunting folk confessional that the Stanley Brothers might have tackled. Here, in this stark territory where raw emotions are honestly and painfully delivered, country and punk meet.

BLOOD ON THE SADDLE — “Blood on the Saddle” (New Alliance NAR-015); appearing Saturday with the Velvet Monkeys at the 9:30 Club.

Washington Post: https://wapo.st/3tnoJT8