Samantha Fish called it her album release tour. The smoldering guitarist and singer was a few songs into her scintillating 90-minute set when she told the sold-out crowd at the Narrows that a lot of what she’d be playing would be coming from her new LP, Paper Doll. Certainly, there were no complaints from the capacity crowd on this solstice Saturday night, as Fish, undeniably and deservedly, is a longtime favorite at the venerable old New England mill. 

Opening with a raucous rendition of MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams,” Fish set the tone for the evening ahead with that nod to the proto-punk rockers, sitting nicely as a precursor to her own slew of boiling originals that followed. The New Orleans-based Fish’s latest is a whopper of an album, blooming off of stalks of blues, punk, country, and rock. In performance, though, everything the quartet tackled seemed to pulse a beat stronger, as she and her veteran ensemble ratcheted up the ferocity.

Stalking the stage from side to side, Fish visited the title track first, then onto “Can Ya Handle the Heat?” With her signature flare and fiery guitar-work, she peeled off one impressive solo after another, shifting just as easily to bottleneck slide for several entries. An especially captivating moment early on was her scorching reading of “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You,” as Fish alternated between her arresting, razor-sharp vocal and her searing six-string leads.

A mid-set highlight, “Sweet Southern Sounds” built to brilliant peak. Then, after a calming turn on “Off in the Blue,” Fish dipped into her back catalog for a stomping “Bulletproof,” signaling a nod to North Mississippi hill country blues that she’d reprise a bit later. Before that, though, Fish returned to the Paper Doll repertoire, with “Fortune Teller” logging in as the seventh of eight cuts from the nine-song album featured on this night.

It was back to hill country for an extended and nearly show-stopping presentation of R.L. Burnside’s “Poor Black Mattie,” that would’ve been the set’s summit if not for the effort on “Dreamgirl” that rolled in after “Rusty Razor.” Fish’s take on “Dreamgirl” was nothing shy of stunning, as her vocal command of the delicate melody and her impassioned guitar simply owned the moment. It was hard to match, but Fish tried, closing out the appearance by inviting the Texas Headhunters’ guitarist, Ian Moore, for a jam on the encore, leaving those packed into the Narrows standing and shouting, once again, for more.  Samantha Fish as a paper doll?  Anything, but that.