Date Black Woman

After the exceptional tributes to Motörhead, Black Sabbath and AC/DC released in recent years, Armadillo/Secret Service Records is back with another beautiful release, a true parade with the best of Brazilian Heavy Metal. This time, the honored band are the British veterans of Deep Purple who recently released “Whoosh!”, their 21st original work, surpassing 50 years of career with all the pomp.

Third album from the Australian garage punk and pub rock super-group is a fine album of lurching blues-driven rock, though it pales by comparison to the two previous albums…

The New Orleans barrelhouse boogie piano specialist's earliest sides for OKeh, dating from 1940-1941 and in a few cases sporting some fairly groundbreaking electric guitar runs by Jesse Ellery. Dupree rocks the house like it's a decade later on two takes of "Cabbage Greens" and "Dupree Shake Dance," while his drug-oriented "Junker Blues" was later cleaned up a bit by a chubby newcomer named Fats Domino for his debut hit 78 "The Fat Man."

The album is organized around the diverse moods and moments one might encounter in a movie soundtrack: rock, surf, spy, jazz, latin…

A Woman a Man Walked By arrived just a year and a half after PJ Harvey's equally difficult and brilliant White Chalk. That alone makes it notable, since the last time she released albums in such quick succession was the early to mid-'90s, around the same time of her last songwriting collaboration with John Parish, Dance Hall at Louse Point. That album's unbridled experiments provided a sharp contrast to the subversive polish of its predecessor, To Bring You My Love; while A Woman a Man Walked By isn't quite as overt an about-face from White Chalk, the difference is still distinct. Here, Harvey and Parish (who played on and co-produced White Chalk) trade sublime, sustained eeriness for freewheeling vignettes that cover a wider range of sounds and moods than her music has in years.

Originally released on Stax's short-lived Enterprise label, this finds Detroit harp man Aaron "Little Sonny" Willis backed by Memphis players working in an early-'70s blues-rock groove. The Bar-Kays provide the horn blasts, and although it would be a sin for Memphis players to overplay on anything, nothing here really catches fire; the whole session stays in low gear throughout.

Magic Slim has released a pile of albums, all of them true to his group's house-rocking credo. The idea this time around was to hook him up with producer Dick Shurman and get Slim to record tunes he hadn't committed to wax yet. With a tight version of the Teardrops aboard (the ubiquitous Nick Holt on bass and vocals, Michael Dotson on rhythm, Allen Kirk on drums, and Slim's son Shawn Holt making a guest appearance on "Young Man's Blues"), Slim turns in a solid effort here. But perhaps the biggest change this time around is the inclusion of four original tunes from Slim, big news for a combo that many consider to be the ultimate blues cover band. Counting Nick Holt's "Playin' with My Mind" and Shawn Holt's "Young Man's Blues," the original material is up to the 50-percent mark, making this their most adventuresome outing to date.