There’s a moment about ninety seconds into “Panic Is the Norm” where Clayton Doley just lets go on the keys, and you can practically hear him grinning while he does it. That’s the moment this whole single is built around, and once you’ve heard it, good luck sitting still through the rest.

Nathan Bryce and Loaded Dice have made a career out of blues rock that never quite behaves itself, and this new single keeps that streak alive. The guitar runs thick and unruly, the rhythm section won’t slow down for anyone, and Doley’s piano crashes through the arrangement with the kind of nerve that made Jerry Lee Lewis famous in the first place. You catch echoes of Free Creek’s loose session energy, a touch of Delaney and Bonnie’s swagger, all filtered through a band that clearly isn’t interested in playing it safe.

The words belong to Candace Crockett, and they come from a real place. She’s a widow raising her family alone, and instead of writing something mournful, she’s turned her own exhaustion into a song with real teeth and a wicked sense of humor. “You don’t always get a break,” Bryce explains, “you just get better at running.” That single line carries more weight than most choruses manage across an entire album.

I enjoy that the song detaches itself from the pile of blues rock revivalists currently clogging up playlists., Nothing here feels like homage. Doley isn’t tipping his hat to Jerry Lee, he’s just playing that way because that’s apparently who he is at the keys. Bryce isn’t chasing authenticity, he’s already got it, earned across years of sweaty rooms and amps pushed past where they should go.

Three listens in, I was tapping my desk hard enough to annoy the person next to me. With a track this alive, that’s really the only review that counts.