The newest release from Memphis-based Lucero begins with gravely-voiced Ben Nichols singing "you said you're tired of this goddamn town/ said you're gonna burn it all down/ drive your car to the end of the bridge/sit and watch the smoke rise/lay on your hood at the top of the ridge/gonna watch it all burn tonight … alright" overtop a churning guitar riff and a dirty drumbeat. It is the perfect beginning to a smoke-filled rock record.

Nichols growls, the guitars suck the air from the room and leave feedback carrying sweet pop melodies, and the drums pound out a blues/rock march that erupts when necessary; this is "Nobody's Darlings." A 12 song effort, "Nobody's Darlings" hits you like an evening with some friends that turned out to be an all-nighter. It goes by fast and painlessly, but stays with you the next day, and you wonder how you did so much shit the night before - without being arrested.

Well, I don't know if the 4 guys from Lucero have ever spent some nights in jail, but it's obviously from listening to "Nobody's Darlings" that they have definitely spent some nights listening to Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Willie Nelson and some Dire Straits. This is Lucero's fourth proper release, the first on their own label -Liberty and Lament, and it starts with uptempo storytelling and stays there, almost the whole way through.
Previous Lucero efforts have been filled with slow ballads and laid back rockers, but "Nobody's Darlings" is a pretty full on guitar onslaught that will likely cause headbanging and singing along.

Lucero has shown touches of heavy rock on their previous releases, but this is the first record they have unleashed themselves, left all the slow pretty feelings behind and captured the sweat and heartache of life on the road. The opener "Watch it Burn" sets the pace for a record that has only one goal, to "slash and burn." Nichols tells stories of lost love, broken hearts and days as dark as night. Nothing seems to work out exactly as planned - "now Kathy's been with Benny Bauer ever since that night/ she's tried to leave him many times but can't quite get away/ she's seen more jails and courts and lawyers than she'd like to say" - but the characters never change, never find an epiphany - "buy another scotch as I head for the door/ and it won't make me better/ but I wanna make sure" - and keep going in circles "drink it up boys it's the last night in town/ it's too late to turn back now/ in the morning it's the wide open road/ take it far enough and it'll bring you back home."

"Nobody's Darlings" captures a restless, angry, dirty vibe that resonates with us all at one time or another. "Cause when you try to make it stay/ that's when it surely slips away/ and it's all the same to me" Nichols tells us. The thing that is not the same about this record is its commitment to tell stories of hurt - like the finest blues and country singers - at a blistering pace, the pace of life.

Reviewed by: Mike Hammer