***The South has a legacy of great, iconoclastic storytellers—artists with a kudzu-shaded vision that cuts straight to the core of the human soul. Arkansas native JIM MIZE’s new breakthrough album, simply called Jim Mize, stakes his claim among them. As its nine songs reveal, Mize is a primal rock ‘n’ roll visionary who colors his music with hues borrowed from blues and garage psychedelia, and writes with a stark brevity that punctuates every heartbeat of the characters who draw the attention of his pen: car parkers and bar tenders, boozehounds and love-drunk couples, the longing and the satisfied, the faithful and the lost. (STREET DATE - 6/24/2014)