Lucero
Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers

“Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers” (2006 @ Liberty & Lament) is the sixth album by Lucero, a band “from Memphis, Tennessee,” like good old whiskey. This album had the same impact on me as did the Howlin’ Rain by the ever-untamed Ethan Miller of Comets On Fire. There's a small difference. While the Howlin’ sounded like a playful and self-satisfied tribute to a certain 70s psychedelic-southern rock, the Lucero seem as if they have never seen the new millennium come to life, remaining happily angry, punk in spirit, and country in roots.

It is a mature album like a fig in the sun, rough on the outside but soft and rich on the inside. You can smell all the scents of the hottest USA, even the dirtiest ones (“The rain'll wash away the piss and blood, But the water's not enough…” – “Sing Me No Hymns”). Ben Nichols' voice scratches like a rake and caresses the "auditory taste buds" like the velvety liquid so loved by "barrel-stopper shooters." Broken shards and nights gone wrong accompanied by a piano played "one finger at a time."

On the highway to “San Francisco”, the guitars stir the tumbleweeds in circles, the car's roar is an accordion in the distance. “1979” is a ballad all piano and guitar, melancholic with studs, leathers, and rock’n’roll (“you were mine, nineteen seventy nine, just skin and bones, your favorite dress, motorcycle boots, raised on rock & roll”) which should be followed, in a "melancholic unicum," by the homonymous song by the Smashing Pumpkins, which in contrast recall worn jeans and jukeboxes. Two visions of the same year.

Every song stands out for its smart melodies and for the always punctual guitar and keyboard work. The album has absolutely bluesy cadences and also “I Don’t Wanna Be The One,” which allows the drummer to keep punk-rock rhythms dear to Weezer and early R.E.M., and “Cass,” which opens with a sunny solo, echo that poignant and “empathetic” breath. The group offers us moods that any certified rocker feels as their own, regardless of the localized lyrics.

The absolute light of the album is the beautiful ride “The Wight of Guilt,” where the group is as cohesive as in few other moments. A piano that marks the accents of the verse and an instrumental chorus to hear and hear again. Certain gentlemen, Kings Of Leon have learned much from this lesson.

Recommended sight unseen for lovers of rock and the desolate American landscapes (“San Francisco”), for lovers of half-damned cow-boy women (“I Can Get Us Out Of Here Tonight”), of journeys without a destination and returns to the origins (“The Mountain”), of alcohol and its infinite (anti)social properties (“Sing Me No Hyms”).