On paper, this live set has all the makings of a supremely excessive blooze-rock rave-up. Always a mean guitar-slinger, Tab Benoit is backed up here by Louisiana’s LeRoux, who’ve had their arena-rock moments in the past. And his guests include Wet Willie singer Jimmy Hall and Fabulous Thunderbird Kim Wilson, who’ve worked a few enormadomes in their time.

Check those expectations at the door, though. Everyone on the album has also played their share of pure, tasteful blues, and that’s largely what they do here. Fifteen years into his recording career, Benoit has outgrown the need to play superflash solos—if you want those, get his live Swampland Jam disc from a decade ago. He’s in fully cooperative mode here, keeping the songs relatively tight and making sure everyone gets some time upfront. And in the definition of good taste on a live blues album, the solos all end before you really want them to.

Sometimes you have to admire the restraint. On “Muddy Bottom Blues,” guitarists Benoit and John Odom both say their piece, then head back to the song just when you expect the two-guitar showdown to start. Likewise on the ballad “Darkness,” Benoit does an intense string-bending solo to set up the last verse; anyone else would have used it to set up more string-bending. Benoit gets his between the lines; notably the tasty rhythm licks he plays behind Wilson’s harp on “Stackolina.”

The album leaves you wishing for just one tasteless, overlong guitar solo. And since Benoit’s going for a song-oriented approach, it would help to have more soul nuggets as good as “Lost in Your Lovin’” and fewer 12-bars. So this winds up as the latest in a long string of solid Benoit efforts, albeit one that calls more for civilized applause than hoisted lighters.