Still Wicked: Wilson Pickett's Raw Return

THE HOWL is unmistakable. Raw as fresh meat, gritty and powerful as sandblasting. That's Wilson Pickett shouting thunder over the fatback grooves of a new album called It's Harder Now (Bullseye Blues & Jazz). And it's a shock. Not only because Pickett hasn't made an album since the mid-'80s, but because his voice still has all the torque and flexibility – the chained-but-snapping emotionalism – that it did at the peak of his career, when he was one of the top soul-music stars in the world.