Emotional storm clouds roil over the powerful songs of Otis Taylor, surely the most important presence to emerge on the contemporary blues scene since Corey Harris. Taylor's stories of racial struggle and heartbreak ring with a near-mystical sense of portent and crackle with an elemental weight akin to John Lee Hooker's while embracing the sonic edges of psychedelic rock. This disc is even better than 2001's critically heralded White African, upping the intensity with numbers that probe the lingering ties of slavery ("Ten Million Slaves"), the legacy of the Freedom Riders ("32nd Time"), and the dark staples of suicide and murder ("I Like You, But I Don't Love You," "Three Stripes on a Cadillac").