ALBUM REVIEW: Lucius Taps Country Stars Dave Cobb, Brandi Carlile, and Sheryl Crow for Its Most Pop Album Yet

Lucius — the vocal powerhouse band led by Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe — began in 2009 with folk music roots. Its 2013 label debut LP, Wildewoman, brimmed with acoustic-based sing-alongs about chasing dreams together. On that record, as well as much of 2016’s Good Grief, Laessig and Wolfe sang in close harmonies or even in unison, playing the part aesthetically, too, by matching their outfits, shoes, hairstyles, and makeup with the same kind of precision. 

For Second Nature, its fourth full-length of original songs, Lucius collaborated with some of country music’s biggest stars. Dave Cobb and Brandi Carlile co-produced the album and Sheryl Crow guests on backing vocals; they even recorded primarily in Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio A (the space Chet Atkins built with Owen and Harold Bradley, where Dolly Parton recorded, “Jolene” and Waylon Jennings recorded Honky Tonk Heroes). Yet, Second Nature is the band’s least rootsy album to date.

With such seismic life changes as Wolfe and drummer Dan Molad’s divorce, Laessig’s first experiences as a mother, and the band putting its entire career on hold (due to these personal changes, the pandemic, and more), the resulting 10 new songs sonically reflect these emotional upheavals.The band embraced a dance-centric, pop sound — a soundtrack to move to as the pandemic rages, the ocean rises, and personal lives fall apart. 

This new-to-them sound isn’t necessarily a surprise, considering Laessig and Wolfe’s time as vocal collaborators in the pop world — recording with Harry Styles, The War On Drugs, and John Legend, and touring extensively with Roger Waters — between Good Grief and Second Nature. Thanks to these and other influences, Lucius integrates funky bass lines and synth hooks into their already bouncy, vocal-centric music. “Dance Around It,” which features Carlile and Crow, is a downright celebratory, disco-tinged bop for a song with lyrics as cutting as “I just touch myself because I don’t wanna f- / Eyes wide shut and we’ll keep dancing above, underground / We’ll keep dancing around it / Our love’s burning out we’ll keep dancing around it.” Lead single “Next to Normal” channels similar buzzing energy, as does the uptempo, bass-heavy “LSD.”

But Lucius hasn’t pivoted completely from its own roots. Laessig and Wolfe’s vocals still serve as the band’s centerpiece, and a couple of ballads on Second Nature, like “24” and closer “White Lies” (the first song the band wrote after Wolfe and Molad’s divorce), harken back to those softer beginnings. What’s missing is an acoustic, vocal showstopper like “Dusty Trails” from Good Grief or “Two of Us on the Run” from Wildewoman. But when the entire album is a rush of movement and catharsis, it’s not necessarily the right time for wistful contemplation and hopeful dreaming. It’s more impressive that Lucius was able to make a record like this and make a new style sound like second nature.