David Hidalgo, Luther Dickinson, Mato Nanji - 3 Skulls & The Truth

Trio

As threesomes go these guys are a reasonable magic 3, and fit neatly in the middle to make a musical three of similar and recent blues-based releases: ZZ Top’s La Futura and The John Spencer Blues Explosion’s Meat + Bone. 3 Skulls... isn’t as dirtraw as ZZ or as punkraw as JS, but the stomping and guitar-rich basic blues gets a powerful churning out by axemen David Hidalgo from Los Lobos, Luther Dickinson from various and the North Mississippi Allstars, and Mato Nanji from Indigenous. The guitar riffs are consistently sound as one would expect, and vocal duties are shared, solo and obviously as harmony, but it does lack the grit-in-the-throat appeal of a Billy Gibbons. In many ways it is standard if mature fare, like fifth track Coming Home, but there are stompers like opener Have My Way With You, and the powerchug of Mississippi Clean. There is a fine walking blues with penultimate track Woke Up Alone.