Lucero Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers CD

For REBELS, ROGUES & SWORN BROTHERS, their last album on their own Liberty & Lament Records, Memphis's Lucero deliver the kind of blood, sweat, and tears that have made them '00s roots rock darlings, road monsters, and signees to Universal Music Group. This kind of ragged-heart-on-the-sleeve alt.country/Southern rock lives or dies on the realness of its soul, and Lucero offer a walk-it-like-they-talk-it urgency to be reckoned with across the album's 12 tracks. On stand-outs like the rousing Springsteenesque opener "What Else Would You Have Me Be?" and the shattering "On the Way Back Home," Ben Nichols employs the obligatory whiskey references but inhabits each potentially cliched phrase as if he'd be joining the army or eternally tending bar in some dive (like the characters in his songs and, presumably, his friends back home) if his performances don't fly. Thankfully--via painfully threadbare vocals--they do. With the quartet's thick guitars framed by cathartic piano and melancholic accordion runs (courtesy of supplementary multi-instrumentalist Rick Steff), REBELS is a triumph of workmanlike grit to be filed next to Bob Seger, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Pogues.

Lucero: Ben Nichols (vocals, guitar); Brian Venable (guitar); John C. Stubblefield (bass instrument); Roy Berry (drums, percussion).

Spin (p.102) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he band's restless, energetic twin-guitar assault, mingled with studio vet Rick Steff's piano, sells the drama without overplaying it."
Q (p.120) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[O]n the emphatic 'I Don't Wanna Be The One' and the tender 'She Wakes When She Dreams,' Lucero almost match Jeff Tweedy's pre-Wilco outfit Uncle Tupelo."
Alternative Press (p.200) - "[T]he Memphis-based hell-raisers decided to return to their Southern roots....The band have traded in their distortion pedals for generous helpings of keyboards, accordion and organ..."
Magnet (p.101) - "Like Cash, Young or Westerberg, Nichols sucks emotional exhaustion through is lungs and coughs it up like a throatful of ash, sounding decrepit and old without apology."
CMJ (p.4) - "Lucero have crafted an album that serves as a proper tribute to their musical inspirations while fully presenting their own unique voice."