For those swayed by the magisterial authenticity of Mount Carmel on their eponymous 2010 debut album: its follow-up Real Women finds the band honed and sharper, thus delivering what might be the best sophomore album released by an American blues-based power-trio since ZZ Top’s Rio Grande Mud. Nods to Free, Humble Pie, even Trapeze can be sussed out in the mix, but at the end of the day, Real Women is straight-up Mount Carmel all the way. Searing leads, smokey vocals, thundering rhythms, cascading drums, hyperbolic hyperbole... it’s all here. Mount Carmel brings back the spirit of 1973 like no one else. The only difference now is bette...[more]