Trance blues is probably the best description of R.L. Burnside's "Goin' Down South," the bruising, brooding centerpiece of "Shake Hands With Shorty," the impressive debut disc from the North Mississippi Allstars. Luther Dickinson mumbles the morose lyrics, using his guitar to scratch out the one-chord riff, and then digging deeper, ever deeper into the contours of the tune. His brother, drummer Cody Dickinson, and bassist Chris Chew, meanwhile drive home the rugged rhythms.

The twentysomething siblings, sons of Memphis musician and producer Jim Dickinson (Replacements, Rolling Stones), as teenagers asked their parents to relocate from a middle-class neighborhood to the Mississippi hill country, down the road from veteran bluesmen Burnside and the late Junior Kimbrough. The relocation had its intended effect: The former rock and rollers absorbed the influences of the rural setting, spending much time in area juke joints, and in 1996 emerged as the Allstars.

The trio, simultaneously rooted in the ancient soulful sound of Burnside and Mississippi Fred McDowell, and the noisy revisionist blues of Jon Spencer, zigzags all over the blues-roots landscape, sliding sweet slide figures between the cracks of McDowell's funky "Shake 'Em on Down," and giving even freer reign to the bottleneck on Burnside's "Po Black Maddie."

Bits of power-trio rock ala Cream, Hendrix-style psychedelia, and spontaneity in the neo-jamband mode show up in the sound of the Allstars, augmented on the disc by such guests as pianist East Memphis Slim (dad Jim), two of Burnside's grandsons, and Alvin Youngblood Hart. And the final, nine-minute cover of Kimbrough's "All Night Long" opens up into a sprawling section spiked with a reference to the Allmans' "Blue Sky." We'll be gleefully chewing on this one for a while (and savoring the aftertaste even longer).
- PHILIP BOOTH