Eric Sardinas

“It’s nothin’ new,” Eric Sardinas sings on his fourth full-length, Eric Sardinas and Big Motor, and honestly, it’s hard to argue. Then again, some classic approaches don’t require a new formula, and Sardinas’ sometimes limited palette is less complaint than statement of fact. A shredding slide guitarist with a touch of Slash’s trashy showmanship, Sardinas’ tattooed blues frequently hammers the hard rock. (Maybe that’s what happens after almost two decades of playing Los Angeles clubs.) Add a raspy shout-sing with hints of Diamond Dave’s playful irreverence, and it’s not difficult to see Sardinas scratching that classic-rock-meets-blues-boogie sweet spot between Free and Aerosmith. While Sardinas explores country blues with electric dobro as well as R&B and gospel elsewhere on his albums, he’s truly at his best when he fashions his guitar wail into the kind of nasty, slithering proto-boogie that calls for strippers and liters of Jack.