Kevin Bronson on February 15th, 2013

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Rival Sons are one of those enigmas – how can a southern California-bred band, so exceedingly competent at what they do, enjoy huge acclaim seemingly everywhere except their home turf? (See also: Vintage Trouble.) To read their press clippings from the U.K. and Canada, the Long Beach quartet of singer Jay Buchanan, guitarist Scott Holiday, bassist Robert Everhart and drummer Michael Miley darned near invented blues-rock, or are at least worthy bearers of the torch Led Zeppelin lit. Vocalist Buchanan, a former pop songsmith, inhabits all the rough-and-tumble of classic rockers of the ’70s, and the chest-pounding songs on their forthcoming album “Head Down” (out March 19 in the U.S., already a listmaker in the U.K.) represent a slap to the back of the heads to all who water down the form. Maybe we need our blues safer? Maybe it’s too revivalesque? Maybe Rival Sons just need, as the title of the 2011 album that put them on some maps suggests, more “Pressure & Time?” And then there is the video for “Keep on Swinging,” speaking of revivals …

||| Previously: “Pressure and Time” and “Until the Sun Comes” video.