Overlooked in 09′ Lucero’s 1372 OVERTON PARK

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MP3: Smoke- Lucero

MP3: What are you Willing to Lose- Lucero

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MP3:  Nights Like These- Lucero

BUY: 1372 Overton Park/ Tennessee

With the pressure and fun of compacting all of our favorite music of the year over we are now granted the hindsight to go back and kick ourselves in the pants for forgetting albums or tracks that mashed our brains into mush or fueled our nights of revelry with an unending supply of testosterone and sonic courage.  Lucero’s 1372 Overton Park definitely fits the latter category for me.  I’ve got a feeling that when Milwaukee bars are forced to put their ashtrays into storage and also have to resort to utilizing those crates of name branded matchbooks for creating ambience or gifting them to patrons looking to create a romantic history, they might also consider taking this album out of the internet juke.  It’s a record that is full of smoke.

While some of the fans of this gritty southern rooted rock band thought that signing to a major, Atlantic Records, was long overdue, others were apprehensive that clean production and label pressure would soften up their writing, dull their edge, or autotune (heh!) the sandpaper and smoke filled vocals of Ben Nichols.  Well, of course that never happened.   Sure the production value was upped; the keys are way more pronounced.  And horns have been added.  But, in my opinion, these additions give the album a southern fried sound and make Lucero even stronger than before.  As and added bonus for fans, instead of steady head bobbing and fist pumping you can now add a little shake or shimmy as Nichols, one of the best barroom philosophers to emerge from this generation, talks us through his debaucherous tales.  The first three tracks “Smoke,” “What are you Willing to Lose,” and “The Sound of the City,” are the best 1-2-3 punch since the trio of anthems that open up The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls in America. But 1372 Overton Park isn’t only for fighting, it’s got “Nights Like These” numbers that make you ponder situation and position like “Can’t Feel a Thing” and “Goodbye Again.”  A well- rounded offering that just missed my list of top albums of the year.   I am very excited for Lucero’s next move.