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If you follow blues rock at all, you’ve doubtlessly already encountered the utterly beguiling Blues Pills. In a field already crowded with strong bands and phenomenal players (think Graveyard and Kadavar), Blues Pills outshine the rest with killer hooks, a charismatic vocalist who can rightfully be compared to the likes of Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin, and a commitment to authenticity that courses through everything they do.

Other bands of the same genre sometimes come off looking like costumed retro dilettantes. The worst of them are often nothing more than straight-up copyists. Blues Pills, though, really and truly sound, look and feel like time travelers from a bygone era.

On their eponymous debut full-length, they serve up psychedelic musical substances as mind-expanding as anything their forefathers could have imagined. Even the album’s vibrantly explosive artwork is from the ‘60s, courtesy of noted artist Marijke Koger-Dunham.

The band also possesses confidence and maturity that belies their young age. And I do mean young. French guitarist Dorian Sorriaux is only 18 years old, and sounds as if he was fed a steady diet of Ritchie Blackmore, Peter Green and Jimi Hendrix from the day he was born. It’s his tasty riffage that gives Blues Pills its true heft. 

But the band’s immediate emotional impact comes via Swedish songstress Elin Larsson (a relative old-timer in her 20s). Larsson’s soulful wail propels the album’s charging rockers and slithers through its smoky slow-burners.

Sorriaux and Larsson are so phenomenal that the American rhythm section of drummer Cory Berry and bass player Zack Anderson are sometimes overlooked, but it’s their rock-solid framework that gives their bandmates a comfortable place to build.

Blues Pills charges out of the gate with one of the album’s best songs, the chugging rocker “High Class Woman.” in which the band gives Larsson free reign to immediately take control and show her stuff. The next song, “Ain’t No Change,” lets Sorriaux have the spotlight for an extended bluesy breakdown.

From there it’s one standout track after another, the cream of the crop being the torchy “No Hope Left For Me,” the driving “Devil Man,” and white hot blues rocker “Astralplane,” which takes the listener on a slow motion trip through the cosmos.

(released August 5, 2014 on Nuclear Blast Records)