Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Piper and the Hard Times play a brawny array of blues, rock, soul, rhythm-and-blues and funk. Individual songs on the band’s new album, Revelation, can tilt closer to one style or another.

The band’s core trio—singer Al “Piper” Green, guitarist Steve Eagon and drummer Dave Colella—are 20 years into their musical partnership. For Revelation, the trio’s seasoned chemistry blends smoothly with complementary guest backup singers and instrumentalists.

Eagon, besides playing guitar, is the band’s principal composer. His lively guitar riffs accompany Green’s soul-man vocals plus lyrics that the singer based on his own life. For instance, track two, “The Hard Times,” tackles coming up short when the bills are due. “Walk in the house, no power,” Green gruffly laments amidst ZZ Top-like rock. “Car needs gas and two kids ain’t fed … I ain’t got no money.”

Green turns optimistic in “Heart for Sale,” a funk-driven track bolstered by percussive stabs of organ by Amy Frederick and Dick Aven’s tenor and baritone sax. Aven’s horns also riff through the likewise funk-powered “Working Farm Blues.” “Revelation,” another of the album’s big productions, takes a rock direction as the singer proclaims: “Now I’m coming back, coming back strong. Just doing the right thing, y’all.”

The inevitable influence of classic Chicago blues especially shows up in two standout tracks, “Crave You” and “You’re Gonna Miss Me.” Howlin’ Wolf surely is an excellent foundation for Piper and the Hard Times and, for that matter, any other blues band.