​Basement’s Best: ‘Fresh Blood’ preaches the gospel of Matthew E. White

In the wake of the peer-to-peer sharing boom and the mushrooming remix culture that it fueled, we face ambivalence as to what constitutes proper artistic appropriation. Looking back now, do we view Led Zeppelin as hacks or heroes for putting their own electric spin on the music of the American Delta?

Could a Tribe Called Quest have kicked it without “Walk on the Wild Side”? Should we give a damn about Foxygen or just put on “High Tide and Green Grass” and call it good?

The line between homage and ripoff is thin and outside of the occasionally inspired tribute album, those that walk it often fall to the latter. However, those artists that can wear their influences on their sleeves, yet transcend fanboyism, may very well find themselves lifted to the same canon of their icons.

An amalgamation of Randy Newman’s oddball balladry, Jimmy Cliff’s sunshiny reggae, Allen Toussaint’s Crescent City R&B and the spirits of all who passed through Muscle Shoals, Matthew E. White’s music is immediately familiar, though no one particular inspiration makes itself obvious.

Riding high on the sweeping success of Natalie Prass’s debut, on which he provided indelible horn arrangements and ultimately released on his own Spacebomb imprint, White’s second full-length, “Fresh Blood,” is a smashing display of his focused songwriting and deft command over his stacked backing band.

Evidenced early on by the Sunday morning jubilation of “Rock & Roll is Cold,” his understanding of America’s musical tapestry is second-nature. Even in employing a well-worn, time-tough blues progression, White cooks up something that rises above the formula, though the basic ingredients (train-track tambourine, hand jiving “ooh-la-las”) are nothing new.

Whereas his debut LP “Big Inner” was primarily a vehicle to demonstrate the power of his top-notch band over his huskily delivered lyrics, “Fresh Blood” finds White using his double-tracked murmurs to do more than just hold place. The son of evangelical missionaries (White spent four years of his young life in the Philippines), he subverts his gospel music stylings to explicitly call out sexual abuse within organized religion in the scathing brimstone of “Holy Moly.”

His memoriam to late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Tranquility,” isn’t so much a “gee, we sure miss ‘im” toss-off, but a somber meditation on the tragedy of a brilliance lost forever.

Brushing off notions of revivalism or, worse yet, impersonation, White and the Spacebomb crew are writing a new chapter in the Great American Songbook with a Smithsonian-by-way-of-Stax piety.

96.3 KNDS Suggests

“Gimme All Your Love” – Alabama Shakes

Whoever continues to break Brittany Howard’s heart, keep it up. Call it sadism, but spine chills are inevitable as she reels back and forth from anguished yowl to bleeding-heart mutter.

“Depreston” – Courtney Barnett

A Courtney Barnett song is worth a thousand words. A lyrical alchemist, her telling of a house-hunting trip in the suburbs of Melbourne rips away the mundane (“A collection of those canisters for coffee, tea and flour”) with the turn of a phrase as she uncovers the tear-jerking reason for the real estate’s listing.

“Play it Cool” – Gangrene ft. Samuel T. Herring and Earl Sweatshirt

Coming on like a karate kick in the back alley of a forgotten Blaxploitation flick, the mood is thick as the soul brotha duo of rapper/producers the Alchemist and Oh No pounds through the superfly haze.

“Big Decisions” – My Morning Jacket

Muscular without ever being muscle-headed, there’s always been a heart beating at the center of MMJ’s brand of panoramic riff-rocking. Picking up where they left off four years ago on “Circuital,” the band tosses out hooks with a catch-and-release ease.

“Web” – Thee Oh Sees

The mine of cavernous, groove-heavy psych-rock that John Dwyer’s quartet has consistently pillaged seems to have no end. Guided by Dwyer’s calling-card bark, they plow through “Web” with scuzzy abandon, toppling walls of amplified static.