Everything about Andrew Block’s debut CD You Can Only Go Up From Here seems to have been fit precisely into place, from the carefully chosen album artwork to the perfectly crafted guitar licks sprinkled throughout the album’s nine tracks.

Block managed to line up an incredibly impressive list of New Orleans musicians to back him up, including Erica Falls, Ivan Neville, Tony Hall, Nigel Hall, Eric Vogel, Raymond Weber, Terrence Higgins and Cory Henry. Neville and Falls shine on vocals, with Falls laying down vocals that are at once silky, smoky and slinky on the album’s opener “It’s Just Your Thing.”

She really comes into her own going back and forth with Block on “Feel Your Love,” and her voice is dripping with pain and regret in “Home is Where the Hatred Is.” The loosest part of the album, when the fun they must have been having in the studio translates through as clearly as any other instrument, occurs when Neville takes the reins on “All I Need.”Block’s stellar guitar work shines on the second track, the Meters-influenced “Pick It Up!,” an instrumental jam balanced out perfectly by Neville on the keyboard, Hall on bass and Weber on drums.

With that lineup, Block really only had one direction to go—straight up—and he certainly launched his solo career in the best way possible with this masterful debut.