Jawbone

Jawbone Self-released Cult heroes twist the soulblues template.

It’s a stretch to call Jawbone a supergroup. But you could warm your hands off the respect for piano man Paddy Milner and slide guitar wizard Marcus Bonfanti on the London blues circuit, and this, their first collaboration, is potent stuff.

Writing eyeball-to-eyeball and trading vocals throughout, the pair’s songs dream a little bigger than 12-bar protocol. Leave No Traces slips a trippy instrumental section into its room-shaking R&B; When Your Gun Is Loaded reboots Nashville heartache for the inner city; Rolling On The Underground serves up a bluesrock chorus so immediate it could hook a transient pop fan. The gear shift to more plaintive fare is convincing, too, with Bet On Yesterday’s rueful lyric decorated by rippling piano, and drop-dead closer The Years Used To Mean So Much aching with Milner’s nostalgia for his childhood and late mother. With a record label behind them, they could be unstoppable.