Ben Harper Bloodline Maintenance Vinyl

Bloodline Maintenance is both a political and personally revealing work. It is soul music, but never a stylistic tribute to some bygone era. The sound and words are essential and undeniably timely.

Tracks like the propulsive “Where Did We Go Wrong” and the guitar-fueled “It Ain’t No Use” are infectious bursts of modernized R&B, with Harper’s voice and musicality at the peak of their considerable powers. But taken as a whole, titles like “We Need to Talk About It,” “Where Did We Go Wrong,” and “Ain’t No Use” offer a more profound social commentary. It is a narrative that culminates with the heart-rending track “Maybe I Can’t,” with Harper delivering the refrain, “Some memories I plant in the garden, others scattered never to grow, maybe I can't let go.” It is a powerful musical reckoning.

Harper acknowledges that much of the exploration on the record was fuelled by an awareness of time. “It’s this notion of mortality and the people we have lost. The way I hoped it would all turn out and the realization that, as beautiful as it all can be, perhaps none of it matters beyond these moments.”