For reasons I've expressed in this space on occasion, I keep my distance from blues-rock. To my ears the genre designation is something of an oxymoron. Crashing guitar and bone-decimating rhythm section are better left to heavy-metal bands, I believe, perhaps crankily, as one raised on Charlie Patton, Brownie & Sonny, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Memphis Slim and the other masters who defined the blues for me.

I have listened to blues all of my adult life, and I do so for the subtlety and humor. Then again, I'm not a working musician whose audiences are at least in part blues illiterates who come for a loud soundtrack with which to party and consume alcohol (not of course that there's anything wrong with that). In that sense rock -- sometimes said to be the spawn of the blues -- throttles the spirit of the blues. Few within hearing range care, I'm sure, and no law says they have to.

As blues-rock goes, however, there's a lot worse than Max Hightower and Nothin' But the Truth. It's loud, it's intense, and it's intended more for good-timers than for casual listeners. But behind its generic title it's rooted in genuine blues, r&b, funk and jazz, all ably executed, keenly professional and powerfully vocalized. For what they demand -- which admittedly is neither emotional nor intellectual depth -- the songs are solid enough. Hightower's harmonica pierces through the instrumental fog. The band kicks hard but not thuggishly. There's a whole lot of New Orleans feeling, punctuated in particular by James Beaumont's saxes and Rob Davis's keyboards.

In short, Hightower, his outfit and the album they've put together sound as if they've come from somewhere, a sonic element I ordinarily require if I am going to listen to something twice. I've listened to this album maybe twice that. Another benefit of listening is that it may do to you what it did to me: drive us to the stacks to hear some good Crescent City-flavored blues, r&b and jazz we haven't listened to recently.