I hesitate to use this analogy for fear it’ll seem hokey, but what the hell: Together, Mike Farris and Ray Wylie Hubbard are something like yin and yang, and a very cool musical pairing at that. Farris has stuck to singing joyous, generous gospel and soul ever since he got clean, and once you hear him let loose live, you’ll know in your gut that he means every word. Hubbard has earned his cult-hero status through decades of probing, penetrating, sometimes flat-out brilliant country-blues songwriting. He’s explored the carnal and the spiritual in turns, often even in the same song — as he does on his visceral new album
The Grifter’s Hymnal — and he’s not beholden to any particular tradition, except that of proud Texas idiosyncrasy.
— Jewly Hight