They formed Big Blood shortly after the birth of their daughter, Quinnisa Rose Kinsella Mulkerin, who began featuring in the band's recordings in 2010 and later became a full-fledged member.

Music critic Byron Coley wrote in 2017 that Big Blood had "long been one of the most belovedly strange outfits in the sonic universe revolving around Portland, Maine.

Raising an infant child conflicted with their demanding practice routine and live performance schedule as members of the band Cerberus Shoal, so they left the group and it dissolved.

[14] In May of that year, Big Blood contributed a track—alongside other psych-folk artists, including Devendra Banhart and Marissa Nadler—to the charity album Leaves of Life, produced by Buck Curran of Arborea, the proceeds of which benefited the World Food Programme and Not on Our Watch.

[17] "Big Blood," wrote WFMU's Scott Williams, "is clearly in full thrall to whatever demon god of creativity squirrels around under the dirt up there in South Portland, Maine among the loons and the decrepit oil tanks."

"[18] In a review of their first seven discs of recordings, Justin F. Farrar at Cleveland Scene praised their diverse instrumentation and musicianship, particularly Kinsella's vocal range, and remarked that "the group's muse snorts a ton of meth before commanding [them] to explore everything from chamber popera to Asian folk music to cosmic Appalachia.

"[19] According to The Brooklyn Rail's Christopher Nelson, their early album Space Gallery Jan. 27, 2007 / Sahara Club Jan. 28, 2007 (referred to as Space Gallery for short) "must be considered one of Big Blood's high points" and stands as "the best representation of the kind of music Big Blood made prior to 2010—sprawling folk music with a sinister sense of backwoods magic".

[21] Their next album, Dark Country Magic, marked their daughter Quinnisa's debut on a Big Blood record with her spoken word performance on the track "Moo-Hoo".

"[23] In Ptolemaic Terrascope, Ian Fraser assessed the album as a "sometimes uneasy yet strangely compelling combination of skewed country, American Gothic and psychedelic moonshine.

[25] The same year, Kinsella and Mulkerin appeared on the album Death Seat by Wooden Wand, which also featured William Tyler (of Lambchop and Silver Jews) and Grasshopper (of Mercury Rev).

[39] Spencer Grady awarded the album a perfect score of five stars in Record Collector, calling it "epic, biblical and totally essential".

[43] In a year-end piece for the website Boston Hassle, Portland-based musician Peter McLaughlin praised Unlikely Mothers as "perhaps the darkest and heaviest batch of transcendent-goddamn-music of their career".

[56] According to a review in The Conway Daily Sun, The Daughters Union "functions more like a proper 'album' than most of the spirited, experimental output in the Big Blood's history.

"[53] On the other hand, Joe Sweeney of Portland-based outlet The Bollard wrote: "If you think the addition of a child would make this challenging music feel safer, you'd be wrong.

"[57] Big Blood's 2018 album Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, first released on Feeding Tube, features a riff-heavy psychedelic rock style with electronic percussion and effects, complementing futuristic themes in the lyrics, which reference the ideas of systems theorist Buckminster Fuller and the science fiction of authors Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler.

[58] In December 2019, Big Blood self-released the album Deep Maine, offering a stripped-back and relatively more traditional folk–country sound on a recording of only the band's core duo of Kinsella and Mulkerin.

[59] Do You Wanna Have a Skeleton Dream?, released in 2020 on Feeding Tube, marked Quinnisa's first songwriting credits on a Big Blood album.

"[42] Bob Boilen of NPR's All Songs Considered called it a "surrealist girl group record" and likened the studio experimentation to the work 1960s producers like Phil Spector and Joe Meek.

It was part of a series organized by Feeding Tube Records of similar performances that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States when many Americans were under lockdown (or "quarantine").

[5][65] A write-up on Big Blood in The Wire noted: "Whether collaborating with friends and family, or digging deep into duo dynamics, they weave a very particular type of mesmerising, esoteric psychedelia, tearing open new channels in the New England folk vernacular.

According to Anthony D'Amico of Brainwashed, "some albums are thematically focused conceptual or aesthetic statements and some are just straightforward collections of good songs that harken back to their earlier strain of outsider Americana.

[18] Sun City Girls were a significant influence on Big Blood,[18] and Kinsella cited their albums Torch of the Mystics and 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond the Rig Veda as particular favorites of the band.

[67] The band has recorded an eclectic range of covers of others' music, including versions of songs by such artists as Can, Skip James, Syd Barrett, Blondie, Captain Beefheart,[42] the Velvet Underground, Missy Elliott, Bob Seger,[45] The Troggs, and Silver Apples.

"[68] The French duo Natural Snow Buildings, who make psychedelic folk and experimental music, have expressed their fondness for Big Blood.