North Mississippi Allstars – Hernando

The North Mississippi Allstars’ popularity with jam-band audiences is easily explained and just as easily overstated. If they can stretch a solo till the second coming of Duane Allman, they also rarely noodle or lose the shape of the blues.

The heavy riffage and grueling rhythms of “Shake”, the opening track on their fifth studio album, may echo Black Sabbath, but that echo only serves to assert and channel the blues base of metal. “Blow Out” redirects the form into slap-back rockabilly, and “Take Yo Time, Rodney” rolls on greased ZZ Top wheels. “Soldier”, however, devolves into improvisational overreach, suggesting that at this point in the history of popular music, pure guitar pyrotechnics are best saved for a stoned live setting.

What’s missing from Hernando (the title refers to the core trio’s hometown) are coherent songs and fine-tuned melodies. Produced by Luther and Cody Dickinson’s famous father Jim, the album has a muscular sound, but faint depth. With the exception of the closing track, “Long Way Home”, a convincing psychedelic trip, it’s hard to discern meaningful motivations for most of these eleven tracks.

Even “I Want To Be Hippy”, with its self-effacing lyrics — “I want to be a hippy, but my hair just won’t grow that long” — feels like an exercise, an excuse for a tired joke. “Mizzip” (as in the state of Mississippi) comes much closer to capturing the kind of swampy blues revival that can nearly make you forget the absence of anything resembling a hook — but only nearly.