When Paula and the Pontiacs get it right, they get it very right. “Everything I Need” plays to all the band’s strengths—its ability to nail a barroom R&B groove, and Paula Rangell’s personable voice. When she sings a ballad, you believe her, and “Quiet Country Night” and her cover of Earl King’s “Your Love Means More to Me than Gold” are sung like thoughts accompanied by music more than lyrics to a song.

Louisiana Bride isn’t always that spot-on. The Latin-esque “Benny’s Bar” is clearly a heartfelt tribute to a bar that you oddly don’t hear much said about anymore, but if you were never there, there’s nothing in the song but a list of names to let you know why you should care. That aside, the album’s reliably solid roadhouse music; it’s music for beer drinking and dancing, and it fits that bill admirably, whether shuffling to Big Maybelle’s “My Country Man” or hitting a swamp funk groove on the title track.