Band serves rock ’n’ roll comfort food
It would be selling Lucero short to say the Memphis band’s new album feels like what you’d take away from a visit to the Lucero store. As in, you know just what you want, you pay your money for it, and you walk away satisfied with another tasty set of rock ’n’ roll comfort food.
“Should’ve Learned by Now” is more than that, for sure, but it’s that, too. And yet the reason it tastes good is because it comes from a band that has polished its sound over more than two decades but still has too many rough edges to come off as complacent or ordinary.
Sure, Lucero sounds less like a garage band than it once did. But the serrated edges of Brian Venable’s guitar-playing and the gravel in frontman Ben Nichols’ voice prevent it from slipping into the overpolished category. It also helps that Nichols writes compelling songs and growls them out with energy and conviction.
Nichols’ Arkansas roots may account for why the band’s music tends to land in the alt-country bin, but his songwriting owes more to the Replacements and Tom Petty than anything coming out of Nashville, Tennessee. That’s obvious from the first cowbell and electric guitar riff on the opener, “One Last F.U.” It continues into the second cut, “Macon if We Make It,” a song about a road trip through Georgia during a hurricane that rides the gale-force energy of Venable’s electric guitar.
Other cuts nudge keyboardist Rick Steff to the forefront. “She Leads Me” and “Raining for Weeks” both show off a band making the most of each member’s ability to drive a song forward.
The new stuff is good enough that the loyal followers will stay, and any newcomers who stray into Lucero’s orbit will discover a still-underrated band that just keeps serving up good music. — Scott Stroud, Associated Press
The title for Gracie Abrams’ debut album
is referenced early in its opening track, “The Best.” She admits: “You’re the worst of my crimes/ You fell hard/ I thought, ‘good riddance.’ ” As the music intensifies, so do the depths of her admissions.
Those confessions set the tone for the album that follows. This is a diary, and one whose author is wellaware that everyone can do wrong. The immediacy of that intimacy forms an agreement between the artist and her listeners that the 12 tracks — co-written and produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner — will hold honest selfreflection.
At 23, Abrams has a knack for the sort of vulnerable songwriting that grabs you in quiet moments, the kind that finds fans because it is empathetic and personal.
Abrams considers the nuances of growing up on “Right Now” — “left my past life on the ground/ Think I’m more alive somehow” — and pines on “Full Machine”: “I’m a shameless caller/ You’re a full machine/ But won’t you answer tonight and say something nice to me.” “I Know It Won’t Work” pairs a heartbeat-like drumbeat with pleading reflections: “What if I’m not worth the time and breath I know you’re saving?”
Abrams’ words are strongest when she centers her youth, probing her emotions in a way that acknowledges possible naivete. Instead of relief or anger, this “good riddance” is tinged with guilt, regret and unanswered questions — feelings that pair well with Abrams’ raw, breathy vocals. Dessner’s collaboration brings a stripped-back direction to the tracks, evident in the emotive acoustics of “Amelie” and “This is What the Drugs Are For.”
“The Blue” is transcendent and refreshingly hopeful, relying on a common turn of phrase to describe the beginnings of a new relationship: “You came out of the blue like that/ I never could’ve seen you coming/ I think you’re everything I’ve wanted.”
That chorus is an enduring earworm, the kind that enters your brain passively, as if to remind you of Abrams’ very dilemma: Situations can always change. And while the song is not rid of the anxiety that imbues the album — “what are you doing to me now?” she repeats throughout — it feels like an awakening.
If “Good Riddance” were a color palette, “The Blue” would be the lightest shade in a sea of navy, gray and deep purples.