Lucero - Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers

Ben Nichols and Lucero have managed to escape the Uncle Tupelo and Replacements comparisons by now. Playing the role of a band that's shared between three markedly different demographics--the indie kids, the punk scene, and the No Depression crowd--the Memphis-based quartet has brazenly flaunted its haggard alt-country for the majority of the '00s. Further distancing itself from the "alternative country" tag for a southern rock panache, Lucero let Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers take its sound into a more fully-realized sound. The production feels thicker and more at ease with itself, and the result is a record that isn't as immediately memorable but enjoys more thorough instrumentation and songwriting. While Nobody's Darlings was a great record, it had a reoccuring feeling of sameness. Rebels is yet another album regaling listeners with Nichols' memories of heartbreak, whiskey and longing for Tennessee--themes native to Lucero's music. But instead of letting his lyrics become caricatures, Nichols' pen-work this time is loaded with more intimate detail and vivid storytelling. In "Cass," the title character is a free-spirited, half-bred beauty, but we're never privy to the tale's actual existence. Nichols' writing drifts in and out of reality, with stories that are plausible as fact or fiction, birthed as likely from experience as from imagination. "Sing Me No Hymns" is a sinner's admission, the country boy's preference of beer over Bible, a crunchy guitar riff carrying the song into the deepest and darkest of places. Living up to its expectations in sound and quality, Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers keeps the good ol' boys of Lucero on a progressive path. [www.luceromusic.com]