Kris Kristofferson: Who's To Bless And Who's To Blame : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

It's been a long time since a Kristofferson album didn't sound like an afterthought to his movie career and Who's to Bless and Who's to Blame is no exception, contrary to all those reports telling of Kristofferson's renewed interest in music. His decline as a songwriter is shocking only in its rapidity; all of those "shadows" lurking in and around his early compositions were tip-offs that the decline was inevitable. His most fully realized work, The Silver-Tongued Devil and I, came in 1971 and subsequent albums have only given rise to the question of whether he'll ever be able to pull himself up again. This album leaves the question unanswered.

The tendency here is for the melodies, the instrumental embellishments thereof and the background voices to create haunting, even deeply felt, moments which are wasted because there's nothing of substance for the listener to grab on to. During "Easy, Come On" you get sucked in by the dreaminess, but once you get your head back you realize it's all been for nothing. Kristofferson isn't even rewriting his best songs anymore; he's just falling flat on his face trying to write one song that might say something, anything. The debacle of this album extends even to Kristofferson's singing, which is more studied in its naturalness than ever before.

It's this sort of crap-on-vinyl that makes me realize how good Dick Dale and the Del-Tones really were.