One of the great truisms of the shared traditions of blues and country music is you can't have Saturday night without Sunday morning, and vice versa. Sin and redemption play a constant game of tug of war in the human heart, and just as the wretched dream of salvation, the righteous wrestle with the insistent call of the pleasures of the flesh. Given his appreciation of roots music at its most raw and feral, it comes as no surprise that Texas-born
Scott H. Biram is fascinated with spirituals, though in his world getting right with the Lord isn't a clean or simple experience.
Biram joined forces with the insurgent country label Bloodshot Records in 2006, and since then most of his releases for the label have touched on matters of faith in some small way. 2019's
Sold Out to the Devil: A Collection of Gospel Cuts by the Rev. Scott H. Biram brings together nine spiritual numbers from his back catalog along with one previously unreleased performance, a cover of "Broadminded" by
the Louvin Brothers. Following
Biram's standard operating procedure,
Sold Out to the Devil devotes the majority of its time to gritty, hot-rodded studies of bad behavior and the difficulty of communicating with the Lord; He may love us, but finding Him is something of a project in
Biram's world.
Biram also shares songs informed by a more compassionate supreme being (such as "Amazing Grace," "What Can I Do," and "I See the Light"), though that doesn't mean they're ready for the Sunday service Grandma attends.
Sold Out to the Devil certainly seems like a good idea for a thematic collection, and most of the tracks presented are genuinely effective; however, this delivers less in the way of emotional range than one might hope, and with only one new selection, most fans will have this stuff already.
Sold Out to the Devil is worth a spin, but you'll have to decide for yourself if your money is better off going to the guy at the record store or into the collection plate.