Late this winter, James Blood Ulmer settled into the Bywater’s Piety Street Recording to record a suite of songs inspired by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The resulting album is curious; on one hand, it’s a fine, funky blues album, but Ulmer’s trademark brittle, sometimes abrasive guitar sound is downplayed and it often sounds like Vernon Reid’s dazzling lead guitar sounds like the defining six-stringed voice. Then again, on “Katrina,” the guitarist whose inventive sense of melody made it possible for him to stand musically toe-to-toe with Ornette Coleman emerges, particularly in fills during the verses.

In many ways, the album is the logical next step in Ulmer’s renewed exploration of his blues roots. After recording Mississippi Delta-inspired blues, Hill Country one-chord jams and funky urban blues seem like the next logical step. As dramatic as his performances are, though, it seems musically a little conventional when compared to Black Rock or Are You Glad to Be in America.

As a statement on New Orleans, Bad Blood in the City is a mixed bag. It’s on its most solid footing when Ulmer works in blues tropes, repeating simple, clear lines and letting their simple gravity and that weight granted by the genre device do the work. When he tries to get more specific, the immensity of the Katrina experience is rendered well-meant but smaller. What happened was a shame, but singing how it’s a shame only captures a fraction of the emotions felt. Fortunately, age is good for a blues singer, and Ulmer’s voice has developed even more gravel, gravity and understated expressiveness.