The Hipnotics

Hipnotics vocalist Jay Mowbray doesn’t flinch when he sings People like to say/That a white man can’t sing the blues on “The Blues Don’t Know.” A blues group willing to open that Pandora’s box has to have some cajones, but the Hipnotics handle the stereotypes by crankin’ out loud, spare, slanky blues until their ears crack. Accident is engineered with miles of space; its best songs sound cool by sounding huge, even if they’re not particularly intricate. Mowbray’s voice and Joe Pascarelli’s guitar echo mightily on the title song, a homicidal, I-hate-my-boss number that Johnny Paycheck would’ve loved. “Death Letter,” Son House’s tangled story of a man who realizes he loves a woman only after she’s dead, becomes even more compelling in Mowbray’s hands; he’s more fascinated by the situation than he is mournful about her death. The second half of the CD drags a little (do we really need another version of “Whippin’ Post,” no matter how decent?), but this album is more than just another late-night souvenir.