Hound Dog Taylor only released two albums in his lifetime, but they’re both amazing. His crude, slashing slide guitar — listening to it’s like being whipped across the face with a car antenna — is backed by Brewer Phillips’ rhythm guitar and Ted Harvey’s drums, and the music has a loose, headlong crudity that almost prefigures punk rock. Their version of Elmore James’ “Hawaiian Boogie” (they also play his “Talk To My Baby”) is so nasty it’s nearly atonal at times, with Taylor’s strings sliding so loose they might slip right off the neck. Even when things aren’t quite as berserk, as on the loping boogie “See Me in the Evening,” there are sudden bursts of static and noise from Taylor’s cheap-ass guitar that push things out of the realm of comfort and into wild abandon.

– Phil Freeman