Pitchfork

Somehow, over the past 10 years, the idea of a new artist playing "modern blues" flip-flopped from being a completely cringe-worthy conceit to a mildly compelling notion, as a slew of young, indie-minded bands (from the White Stripes to the Fiery Furnaces to the entire Fat Possum roster) began mining Chicago and Mississippi hill country blues, snatching raucous, electric riffs, mastering the double entendre, and learning how use a half-shattered beer bottle as a slide. The Missouri-born, Brooklyn-based TK Webb takes plenty of musical cues from late electric bluesmen (see R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough), but manages to fold in enough disparate bits to keep his second full-length LP, Phantom Parade, from ever devolving into blind, dull homage.

Webb has been playing around New York for years, and he's an accomplished enough guitarist and harmonica player that Phantom Parade can be appreciated for its craftsmanship alone. But it's more interesting to squint, lean into your speaker, and try to conjure the dusty spines of Webb's record collection: "Wet Eyed Morn" sounds an awful lot like early, Angola-era Leadbelly, with Webb growling over scratchy acoustic strums and thick, buzzing harmonica, his voice as hard and dreary as Louisiana prison walls. "The Spade", Phantom Parade's poppiest, most optimistic cut, dips into alt-country, echoing late Steve Earle and Bobby Bare Jr., while the fuzz-soaked stomper "Classy" sounds more like indie-blues circa 2002 (think Black Keys).

Phantom Parade is packed with dirty, electric blues songs, but still manages to feel intimate and soft, like Webb and his band are sprawled out on your back porch, drinking warm beer: These songs are friendly, and you'll want to take them with you. Raucous, repetitive opener "The Desert" seems like the appropriate soundtrack for rolling down a deserted Delta highway, counting Baptist churches and catfish ponds, hoping, desperately, to spot another set of headlights. "Lesser Dude" is a loose, downtrodden lament about the fumbled opportunities that lead to hanging out in parking lots, with wily guitar riffs, steady drums, a bit of piano, and Webb's tired, Tom Waits-ian groans.

The blues have been pillaged more liberally (and excessively, and unapologetically) than nearly any other facet of American music, and with good reason: The music of the Mississippi Delta is so strange, complex, and urgent that once you've listened well, it becomes increasingly hard to find anything as interesting. Webb manages to find some comfortable middle ground between well-worn Delta despair and modern technique (and humor), and Phantom Parade is a welcome addition to the contemporary blues songbook.