Review: Lucero Blends Synth and Southern Gothic on 'When You Found Me'

Some things just don't go together. Peanut butter and tuna. Star Wars and David Lynch. Southern rock and Synth. Well, now we can scratch that last one off the list as, on their new album When You Found Me, Memphis Americana vets Lucero did just that, with keyboardist Rick Steff showing off his collection of vintage synthesizers, providing lush backgrounds and driving beats to Lucero's signature sound.

But don't think the synthesizers have turned Lucero into The Cars, or even into “Sharp Dressed Man” era ZZ Top. To counterpoint the synthesizers, the band also embraced their inner Nigel Tufnel, cranking their electric guitars to 11, approaching hard rock levels of crunch. If this sounds chaotic, it oddly isn't. Some of that credit has to go to producer Matt Ross-Spang, whose past work with the band gave him the familiarity needed to pull off what seems on its surface like an impossible feat.

One thing Lucero hasn't changed at all is their commitment to Southern gothic lyricism. Above the space-age sounds of the synths and the crash of the guitars is the vocals of Ben Nichols, whose soulful rasp manages to sound both whiskey-soaked and mournful. It lends atmosphere to an album full of ghosts, both literal and metaphorical.

Highlighting the album is “Coffin Nails”, the story of the death of Nichols' great-grandfather, a WWI vet. If that sounds straightforward, you haven't listened to enough Lucero. Buried within that tale of familial tragedy, there are unseen spirits wailing as the old man died, a protagonist weighing the sins of his life against his father's sacrifice and finding the need to counterbalance, growling “I balance them with coffin nails.”

Wailing banshees not Daphe du Maurier enough for you? Try another highlight, “The Match”, with an ejected drunk encountering a pure white deer, only to be ensnared by a duplicitous maiden and witch. After a night with “the bringer of pain, for the wrongs you have done.” But beneath the pagan passion play is a sly commentary on religion and its effect on the human mind. As Nichols snarls, “it's the fuse and the cannonball.”

Inside all of that darkness, it's appropriate that the band ends When You Found Me on a hopeful note with the album's title track. In the midst of his own darkest days (“when you found me I was crashing, carved a crater in the Earth”), the narrator finds his way through the metaphorical storm via a lover who found his better angels.

Make no mistake, When You Found Me is going to piss off some Lucero purists. The reaction to the album's early singles has already shown that. But when a band approaches its quarter century mark, it is faced with two choices; evolve or find yourself relegated to the nostalgia circuit, doomed to play club after club, listening to the shouted demands for that one hit from your debut. Lucero has chosen to evolve and, for this previous Lucero agnostic, it's a chance for the better. As the “Americana” tent gets bigger and bigger, finding a way to innovate becomes more and more difficult. Lucero has found their way and, purists be damned, it's the best thing they've put out.