Sardinas led a trio through a high-energy set of rocky roadhouse blues-rock on his second album.

Given how tired the format sounds after being exploited by innumerable performers for many years, and also how much better the best of such practitioners are at the format, it's questionable whether another entry in this overcrowded field was unnecessary.

Sardinas' skills as a technically accomplished, if somewhat bombastic and unimaginative, blues guitarist are undoubted.

His hoarse, blustery vocals are another matter, as is the over-the-top macho posturing of his original songs.

It's better when, as the cliché goes, he just shuts up and plays his guitar, as on the instrumental "Texola," or when he tones down the throaty strain of his vocals at least a little, as on the uncharacteristically laid-back closer, "8 Goin' South." Perhaps fans of George Thorogood looking for something in a more headbanging vein may dig this, but here's voting that Sardinas is more properly placed as a sideman than a frontman.

He duets with Mississippi bluesman David "Honeyboy" Edwards, incidentally, on "Gambling Man Blues.".