Mike Graham The Arbitrage Handbook

Flynn's Place is another excellent collection of piledriving, good-time blues and boogie from Little Mike & the Tornadoes, featuring a fine selection of originals and smoking solos.

Although not a blues band in the truest sense of the word, consider this their 'roots music' album. Frontman Little Mike Markowitz turns in a batch of original tunes that more than tip their collective and stylistic hat to Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Louis Prima and James Cotton. The band goes through its workmanlike paces and that same blue-collar approach applies to the lyrical themes on these songs, full of tried and true formulaic stories about sex, the road and bad whiskey and women. It's a shame that the blues can sometimes be reduced down to a pile of cliches but at least the musical side of the equation works.

First Blood harks back to the glory days of the '60s blues-rock boom – Mike Henderson and the Bluebloods' gritty sound is far from original, but years on the Nashville bar band circuit have honed their skills to a razor-sharp point, and the record is refreshingly raw and direct, distinguished by rock-solid musicianship.

Little Mike & the Tornadoes don't alter their musical approach on Payday at all, but they don't need to - they deliver driving Chicago blues with no frills and lots and lots of passion. The group doesn't just churn out the same old covers, either - they tear through a set of 12 originals that are written in the style of classic '50s and '60s blues. Occasionally their songwriting falters, but never their performances. Every song is delivered with conviction, and Little Mike positively wails on both the piano and harp.