Who says old dudes can’t rock? As evidenced by its nine-track debut, Tortue certainly still can. The Lafayette roots rockers do so with a two-pronged attack, most saliently with the interleaving, ’70s-influenced guitars of Blake Castille and Phil Kaelin. Though riffs, textures and tones are prominent throughout, Tortue’s sheer, raw guitar power is best felt on Kaelin’s “Undertow,” a power-chord surf instrumental of sorts.

Songwriting is the second prong. Singing drummer Danny Kimball and Kaelin are Tortue’s chief songsmiths and, stylistically, are different as night and day. Kaelin’s songs are in your face and don’t back off, covering topics such as the evils of war and the shafting of our vets on “Dirty Business.” “TV Jive” is even denser with all the things we abhor: TV evangelists, wars staged in the name of religion and the glorifying of murders, which become our perverse entertainment.

Kimball’s songs juxtapose life observations, ideologies and eloquent Southern imagery. “Sharecropper” is the most vivid of these.

Inspired by the early life of Castille’s legendary fiddling father Hadley, Kimball depicts a sharecropper’s hellish existence as an inescapable caste system. “Ghost Voices (Rise and Sing)” was inspired by a profound Tensas Parish gig and memories of the civil rights freedom fighters. “Fades to Gold” is about growing old with dignity. As Tortue masterfully demonstrates, you’re never too old to rock out again but doing so with fresh ideas is even better.