(100) Days of Soundtrack: #9 – Lucero – Tennessee

Sometimes, bands evoke people for us. My friend Cory is a huge Lucero fan, and so the name itself calls up his face. Lucero is a band I’ve basically been peripherally aware of for a long time for this reason. I knew them to sound like what country thinks it sounds like… like the barren ghost towns of the south, like moonshine and gasoline. I knew their vocalist would have a rasp that put him in a league with the Dylans and the Waitses. Yet I’d still never heard more than a song or two across their catalog. I wasn’t surprised that my friend would recommend Tennessee for these reasons, and with very little of the country vein really striking my interest, something like this felt like it would be an ideal addition to the mix.

Lucero is a band that is lyric-centric. They’re a story band. They mine the alt-country vein, the sad stories, the complications, probably a whole lot of whiskey. Ben Nichols’ voice helps seal the deal: the rough vocals make it easy the man has seen some things. He sounds like a night of drinking and a day of tears, tired and strained. When one hears tracks like “Times Like These,” one believes every word and feels the pain. Of course, the other side of the troubadour approach to music is that the lyrics themselves matter so much more. The mood of the songs on Tennessee is pretty straightforward across the board. The limitations of Nichols’ pipes means the vocals often blend. It’s all about the words being set to those elements, and words… those don’t always hit immediately. “I’ll Just Fall” sticks out less for the violin carrying throughout and more for how much I can relate to the words, how that tired feeling defines me as well as anything else. As such, this is an album that will require a couple good listens to really take to heart, but it’s the sort of music that is easy to embrace.

It’s interesting, for many reasons, that Lucero never made a bigger splash in a post-Mumford era. Sure, Lucero brings an electric edge to the proceedings, but they still have a similar ruggedness, and likely similar roots. They both draw from the well of yearning. Both bands sound like a beard. Granted, the Mumford beard is oiled and coiffed and grown ironically, and the Lucero one is scraggly, possibly even unintentional, but still, the two have plenty in common despite being largely different entities. The main difference, and the saddest statement about what we as a culture are looking for musically, is that Lucero are writing better songs. The blood in their veins, to paraphrase, is rock and roll. It’s not pretty and it’s not bland. And it’s not being heard half as much as it should be. That’s the thing that makes new music feel so important… we all could be loving tons of new bands if only we were hearing them, but all we’re hearing are their most boring counterparts. Let’s continue to fight against that.

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