Mike Mattison stepped down from the riser where he sings as part of the Tedeschi Trucks Band choir to take center stage on Turn a Midnight Corner.

Credited to Mike Mattison & Trash Magic, Corner is nominally the powerhouse vocalist’s third solo album, following 2014’s You Can’t Fight Love and 2020’s Afterglow. It is also the most successful, as Mattison and company gather at the mid-20th-century intersection where county and rock ‘n’ roll collided to form rockabilly. 

Joined by his Tedeschi Trucks bandmate Tyler Greenwell on drums and percussion, plus guitarists Dave Yoke and Greg Spradlin and bassist/keyboardist Wesley Flowers, Mattison delivers the high-octane punch 40 minutes of lo-fi music can pack. As if to underscore the power of subtlety, Mattison is restrained at the mic, tamping down on his trademark rasp and digging up some smoothness. 

With inspired wordplay—“Babe if this is heaven, give me everything you got on hell,” Mattison sings on “Going Down the Alley,” the opening cut that provides the LP’s title—numbers about coming (“Get it Back”) and going (“And I’m Gone”); the obligatory train song (“Be Like a Train”); and the warning that comes on “Oh Be Wary,” with its carefree whistling refrain, Turn a Midnight Corner finds Mattison spring-boarding backward from TTB’s ’60s and ’70s-inspired soul and rock to a couple of decades previous. And in that way, counterintuitive though it may seem, he moves forward.