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Lucero, _Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers_ (Sept. 26th / Liberty & Lament) RIYL: Throw Steve Earle in a blender with Bruce Springsteen, The Band, The Replacements and Social Distortion. _Add some whiskey and puree_.
Thanks to a generous Pre-Order offer from the boys in the band, I was fortunate enough to get a digital copy of Lucero's newest offering in my Gmail inbox this morning. First off, I think it's a great idea to give pre-order fans a digital copy they can listen to immediately, rather than clawing at the empty mailbox day after day. Also, I thought it was also a nice touch for the band to allow 2 downloads before the link expires. I quickly pulled one down to my machine at work, and saved the second for home. But what about the goods?
Some people felt let down by 2005's _Nobody's Darlings_, especially as a follow up to _That Much Further West_. I'm not one of those people, but in the band documentary _Dreaming in America_, songwriter/lead vocalist Ben Nichols explains that he was ready to make a real Rock and Roll record, a departure from the more sprawling, blues/country flavored albums that that preceded _Nobody's Darlings_.
_Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers_ is a leap further away from Uncle Tupelo-style introspective ruminating in favor of shameless ambition, which has already been compared to early Bruce Springsteen.
Nichols is out to prove himself with this record. Moreso than the prior releases, this album is driven by balls out ego and the results are fantastic. This is a Rock Record, first and foremost. It's driving, it's loud, it's messy in places, and it's a damn fun ride, even though you can picture yourself losing a limb or an eye in spots.
The lead track is "What Else Would You Have Me Be", a heartfelt plea of hard living lovers, half of which have appear to have taken on a less eventful lifestyle. "I'd take you out at night," begs Nichols, "buy you cigarettes and whiskey drinks / always ended up in some fight, isn't that how good love is supposed to be / you used to love me, drunk and running wild in the streets / how else would you have me be". Adding piano as it frantically climaxes, it tapers back down before leaping into the quickly paced, "I Don't Wanna Be the One", adding "I don't wanna be the one who wants you so damn much / I don't wanna be the one, who's running out of luck".
After the pretty straightforward Lucero number, "San Francisco", the doors are blown off with "I Can Get Us Out of Here Tonight", a _Born to Run_-style anthem that does just damn fine without Big Man cranking out a sax solo. One of the finest pure rock songs I've heard in a long time, period.
You can catch your breath a bit with the next two tracks, but then "The Mountain" mixes a little twang, organ and big drums to pull a page out of the Drive By Truckers' playbook: "My daddy lost most everything / on horses, whiskey and weddin' rings". "The Mountain" also introduces a shift in sound for the record. It sounds modern, yet slightly dated, in the way that I expected the last Sleater-Kinney to sound after reading all the reviews proclaiming a big 1970s rock sound. I didn't buy it with Sleater-Kinney, but this is very real. "The Mountain" has a break with a soaring guitar/organ break that would make Robbie Robertson & Garth Hudson proud.
Next up is "Sing Me No Hymns", the king hell monster that spawned the title of this post. It's a stubborn wall shaker with huge guitars that immediately make me think of Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla", albeit a Godzilla frustrated by failure, half cranked on plastic jug whiskey swatting away the good samaritans with "of all the things that I feel that need be done / to pay back what I owe, for all the blood and lost ones / till I feel the proper time has come, leave me be and let me drink / I need no more of your good intentions."
"She's Just That Kind of Girl" adds the organ to a Replacements-style rocker before Nichols settles the album to a close with "On the Way Back Home" and "She Wakes When She Dreams".
I've listened to this album non-stop since opening it this morning, and I keep revealing pieces and parts that were definitely not apparent on the work PC with shoddy speaks. I wish it had been available about five months earlier, as it is a great summer driving record. Though he gets overly raspy in places, even to the point of sounding like Shane MacGowan in spots, Ben Nichols continues to grow as a songwriter, and he seems to be composing with more confidence and expectations than before. If only parents would stop pussying up our children with shit like Death Cab for Cutie, we could make Lucero some obscene amounts of money in exchange for their hard work.
If you'd like to Pre-Order, buy straight from the band at LuceroMusic.com
When you pre-order, you get a digital download in 2-4 days, the CD ships a week before the official release date (September 26), plus some pins and an opportunity to buy an album themed tee.
[ This post and others can also be seen at Hip Displeasure , an independent music and pop culture commentary collective. ]
Right after "Southern Man" on Neil Young's _After the Gold Rush_, "Till the Morning Comes" needs just over a minute to pull back on the reins and settle the pace after Young's confrontation anthem has let go of your collar.
The beauty of "Till the Morning Comes", like so much of Young's work, lies in its simplicity and intimacy. The only lyrics are "I'm gonna give you till the morning comes, till the morning comes" repeated twice, then a taste of French Horn before Stephen Stills and Crazy Horse (Danny Whitten, Nils Lofgren & Ralph Molina) join in harmony to ride the soft breeze right back out again, but not before Stills can throw in a trademark, "whooaaa whooa".
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…those should have been Pete Coors' last shouted words as he left that wedding in May.
Don’t let the beer commercials fool you. There’s a good album or two lurking behind the Foghat and Nazareth albums that seem to populate the stacks of so many marketing execs.
Thin Lizzy's _Jailbreak_ was released in 1976. With the hit single, "The Boys Are Back in Town", Thin Lizzy achieved not only a commercial breakthrough in the U.S., but also cold filtered immortality among the laziest ad men serving the beverage industry. But get past "The Boys Are Back in Town", and you'll see a loud hard rock band featuring a twin lead guitar attack and fronted by a half-Brazilian, half-Irish wannabe poet capable of much more than the fist pumping and Bromance inducing of "Boys".
Though lead singer/bassist Phil Lynott has a tendency forget his audience and overextend himself with florid lyrics, he is a more than capable songwriter penning real life tales of working class heroes influenced by traditional Irish literature and folklore. Think Bruce Springsteen + Van Morrison, though obviously toned down a bit. Add into the mix harmonic lead guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson with drummer Brian Downey, who is able to aggressively drive the songs without resorting to big hard rock foolishness like the ol' blickum-blickum-blickum horseshit.
However, where Lynott excels, especially on _Jailbreak_, is the ability to slide almost effortlessly from the big arena roof-shakers [ "Jailbreak", "Warriors", "Boys" ] down to the smooth—yet mournful— groove of "Running Back", originally slated to be the first single, "Fight or Fall", a mellow call for racial harmony, to the country-tinged anthem "Cowboy Song", which somehow never made it's way onto Classic Rock Radio®.
_Jailbreak_ is a great windows-down summer driving record, with quickly paced songs in a natural order. I'll admit it though, "Emerald" and "Warriors" are not good, unless you're cracking a few Old Milwaukees on the tailgate of a work issued F-250 after a long week at the lumber yard. Despite the minor hard rock excesses, Lynott & Co. have a fine rock and roll swagger, but unlike their peers it is backed up with some brains and some subtlety rather than a giant stack of Marshall amps.
[ Originally posted at Hip Displeasure ]
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thin lizzy is one of the most underated bands of all time cowboy song is in my top 50 songs of all time maybe i love that tune!!
Phil Lynott is another one of those sad rock stories.
When you mention "Thin Lizzy" to some people, they go "oh yeah, The Boys Are Back In Town, Jailbreak, yeah, I love that band." But they had so many other good songs.
I picked up on your post here in the Mog-o-sphere, and started playing some Lizzy. Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed is a song that I don't think anyone but a real fan would know about. "Whisky In The Jar" got some attention when Metallica covered it.
I've forgotten a bit of my Thin Lizzy history, but towards the end they had a couple of 80's "guitar gods" in the band. I'm gonna have to google them for a refresher. Or look them up on wiki.
heard and learned much about thin lizzy recently in dub. they are phenom. i read much on lynott. he has so much respect to this day for what he representsand ofcourse for the music. sad.
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what a glowing report....i'm in. thanks
anything like drive by truckers?
Yes and no, though this new record closes the gap somewhat. Both are obviously Southern influenced, but they have different musical origins. Compared to DBT, Lucero is more stripped down, most notably without the 3 guitars and 3 different songwriting/singing styles.
I also feel that DBT has an eye in the rear view mirror, trying to resurrect an rowdy, aggressive rock sound, reminiscent of 1968-1973 Rolling Stones or The Faces with a wink & nod to Ronnie Van Zant and other Southern Rock heroes. This is manifested not only in their sound, but also in the songwriting.
Lucero, on the other hand, tends to be more focused on chugging forward and carving out their own niche in this big American thing. Think Paul Westerberg & Jay Farrar growing up together somewhere between Memphis & Little Rock.
I'm a DBT fan, so don't take my comments as criticism; however, DBT has a pop sensibility, whereas Lucero tends to take a little rougher, less defined road.