The Black Crowes

On Warpaint, the band's first studio release since re-forming in 2005, the Black Crowes show how a little time off can work wonders. The album continues to improve the band's winning brand of Southern-fried power blues-rock, as opener "Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution" and "Movin' on Down the Line" gallop from the speakers like the charging horses on the album cover. Meanwhile, "Oh Josephine" and "Locust Street" are lush, elegant ballads.

Vocalist Chris Robinson's lyrics remain their usual combination of poetically obtuse and hippily hopeful, but Warpaint might finally be the disc that silences critics who insist on throwing out those lazy Stones/Faces/Band comparisons the Crowes have long since outgrown.