Eric Sardinas is a good, even great, electric slide player, and his Dobro skills are equally as impressive. His band on
Black Pearls, Paul Loranger on bass and Mike Dupke on drums, is also quite good. The songs, all written by
Sardinas, sound good and rock hard, although you've heard all this said before. (Granted, blues feeds on recycled lyrics, and it is undoubtedly hard to find a new way to say "I've been down so long I'm gonna leave you.") The highlights here -- the cheerful pop-blues of "Big Red Line," the bluegrass-paced Dobro work on "Old Smyrm Road" -- come on songs that step a little bit outside the blues-boogie template. ~ Steve Leggett