With Bristlecone, Gurf Morlix once again delivers an unmistakable work—painted in his palette of gothic imagery, sparse guitar, and hard-earned truth. This is the kind of album that feels like flying across Seven Mile Bridge at night in a hearse with the windows rolled down, narrowly escaping the Devil, yelling “Step On it Skinner!”
It’s haunted, but never hopeless.
In “Between Midnight and Dawn,” Morlix evokes the hour when “the filters go down,” hungering for the wine soaked kiss of the “priestess of the netherworld.” It’s that space between night and morning where his music seems most at home, glowing like a moonbeam across the cool water.
As always, Morlix paints a complete, texture-rich picture. His raw, deliberate guitar playing is the hallmark of a career stitched into the fabric of timeless American music. The Impressionist painters had their oil paints, and Gurf has his empty Shiner Bock slide and a right hand that can fingerpick like his old friend Blaze Foley—or sear straight through your heart with a fiery Telecaster. It’s his world of color, and we’re lucky to wander its terrain.
On “Glimmer of Hope,” co-written with Ray Wylie Hubbard during the 2020 pandemic, the sound recalls the Delta blues: a lone figure walking down a desolate road, calling to the higher powers to send down mercy. His whisper-growled “aahs” and rare, startling howls are pure bone-chill—making the hairs on your neck stand and scan the dark horizon.
The album closes with “Endless Darkness,” a stripped-down gem that carries the weight of a lifetime’s insight. Morlix doesn’t sugarcoat—his message is plain, and all the more powerful for it: treat your loved ones well, because they’re all we get in the end. That kind of stark truth has defined his artistry from the beginning, and on Bristlecone, it’s as potent as ever.
Gurf has carved out his own niche within the Americana and roots tradition. This isn’t just a set of songs—it’s an immersive sonic world, one he’s been refining for decades. Like a novelist who builds an entire mythology across books, Gurf has created a culture within his music: gothic, weather-worn, and luminous in its own shadows. Stepping into it feels like entering a cathedral made of worn down guitar wood.
The heartbreaking and resilient title track takes the cake on this album— but “cake”seems too empty and sugary of a word— it takes the many layered Vidalia onion? The coarse salt on the rim of your Mad Dog Margarita? Anyway, as Gurf himself likes to remind us: “Onward we go. With hope…I hope.”
About the author: Nashville-based writer covering music that moves me. I keep reviews rare and intentional — only the work that truly stands out.