All A Band Should Do: Lucero’s Latest is a Winner
Tom Manson
Posted On September 21, 2015
Lucero released on Friday their 9th studio LP, All A Man Should Do — a polished 10-track roller coaster of an album filled with valleys and peaks of sound and emotion. Ben Nichols, front man for the Memphis-based rock band, says this is the album he wished he recorded when he was 15. You can get a good sense of what he means when you listen to the parallels between the first track of All A Man Should Do and the first track of the album he did record when he was about 25.
Both ‘Baby Don’t You Want Me’ and ‘Little Silver Heart’, which kick off the new album and the band’s 2001 self titled release respectively, deal with a familiar theme for Lucero tunes — failed relationships. You can also pick up similarities in the cadence and in guitarist Brian Venable’s twangy riffs spicing up the tracks. What Nichols is referring to though is the polish and professionalism that comes along with 15 years of nearly constant touring and growth. ‘Baby Don’t You Want Me’ displays the leaps this band has taken in skill and in finding comfort in their own sound. Maturity is also reflected in the lyrics — evolving from an almost callous indifference to the heartbreak of a man who really opened himself up only to be gutted.
Lucero trade the raw sounds of their earlier releases for the accomplished sounds you hear on ‘All A Man Should Do’. This is their most laid back album and is a truly beautiful arrangement of songs with something for everybody.
There are upbeat rock songs in ‘Young Outlaws’ and the Stonsey ‘Can’t You Hear Them Howl.’ New more modern sounds for the band in ‘Went Looking For Warren Zevon’s Los Angeles’, and the heartbreaking downtrodden brutal honesty of ‘Woke Up In New Orleans’.
The album is set up in a somber half and an uplifting one, and the highlight is the 6th track that comes right after you’ve bottomed out in New Orleans. ‘Throwback No. 2’ is one of the band’s strongest tracks on any album, featuring a Clarence Clemons sounding sax delivered by Jim Spake and some Billy Preston / Beatles sounding keys work by Rick Steff. This is the pinnacle of how all the pieces of Lucero’s Memphis sound come together and it is not to be missed.
All A Man Should Do is a statement of Lucero’s range and an emphatic answer to the question of ‘where could they possibly go next?’ This album is highly recommended.
