LUCERO : SHOULD'VE LEARNED BY NOW

LUCERO : SHOULD'VE LEARNED BY NOW

One Last F.U.
Macon If We Make It
She Leads Me
At The Show
Nothing's Alright
Raining For Weeks
Buy A Little Time
Should've Learned By Now
Drunken Moon
Time To Go Home

Label : Liberty & Lament

Release Date : February 24, 2023

Length : 37:53

Review (AllMusic) : Lucero are a band who take their rock & roll seriously, and 2018's Among the Ghosts and 2021's When You Found Me were clear reflections of that: albums that dealt with serious themes with the appropriate degree of gravitas and thoughtful intent. They were serious enough that while both albums were powerful and emotionally engaging, they were just a bit short on fun, and Lucero knew it. 2023's Should've Learned by Now is a corrective response, an album where the band focuses on rocking out and bringing the party more than they did on their two previous LPs. Lucero's idea of fun has never been simple or simple-minded, and there's more than a little soul-searching on numbers like the heartfelt "She Leads Me" or the Springsteen-esque "At the Show," where the protagonist wants nothing more than for the woman he loves to hear the songs he's written for her. But the one-two punch of the lead-off tracks, "One Last F.U." and "Macon If We Make It," delivers some swaggering, fist-pumping joy that's been in short supply since 2015's All A Man Should Do, and the breakup stories "Nothing's Alright" and "Drunken Moon" and the cool snarl of "Buy a Little Time" may not be full of laughs, but they connect with the confidence and strength of a crack rock band at cruising speed. The impassioned grit of Ben Nichols' vocals is used to excellent effect here, and the full-bodied punch of Brian Venable's guitar and Rick Steff's keyboards is the place where punk-adjacent attitude and classic-rock grandeur meet and learn to get along. Among the Ghosts and When You Found Me were outstanding albums that reflected a difficult time for the world in which Lucero lives. Should've Learned by Now makes it clear things still aren't always a breeze for them, but they've learned that sometimes you just need to plug in that guitar and shake off the bad times as best you can, and they've done so like the great band they are. Put this on, turn it up, and join them in the party.

Review (Pitchfork) : Lucero’s dozenth album opens with drummer Roy Berry banging away on a cowbell, as though this Memphis band is about to launch into a sped-up “Honkytonk Women” or maybe a slowed-down “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Even before Ben Nichols starts singing about a chatty drunk ruining his whiskey neat, you know exactly where you are: You’re back at the bar. It’s the band’s natural environment, and at a moment when bar bands are an endangered species, it’s nice to find them holding down a stool on opener “One More F.U.” Inverting the sentimentality of Tom Waits’ teary barfly laments from the early ’70s, Lucero sound punchy, itching for a fight: “It wasn’t like I came here thinking, ‘Man, this bar is great to drink in’,” Nichols declares before telling himself, “It’s one more ‘fuck you,’ that’s it and I’m gone.” It’s one of his snappiest lyrics, but he knows he’s kidding himself. He’ll be hanging out for a few more rounds, a few more F.U.’s, and nine more songs. After a handful of albums that prioritized southern gothic atmosphere over southern rock riffs, Lucero are back where they started. They’ve been playing barstool blues and ballads for 25 years now, cutting their teeth in the very joints they sing about and surviving even when most bars have replaced rock bands with jukeboxes or, worse, DJs. While Nichols still insists on referring to the women in his songs as “little girl,” there’s something impressive, even endearing about their longevity. Like the Hold Steady and the Drive-By Truckers—two other unkillable bands associated with the bar-rock trend of the 2000s—Lucero are still making solid albums that expand their catalogs in unexpected ways. Road dogs can learn new tricks, as the Moogs and moodiness of 2018’s Among the Ghosts and 2021’s When You Found Me proved. Despite the suggestion of self-reckoning in its title, Should’ve Learned by Now is nothing so dramatic as a comeback or a return to form. Instead, they’re continuing to sharpen old ideas and update familiar themes. This is an album about drinking and the many reasons you do it: celebrating and commiserating, numbing yourself or finding perspective, getting your heart broken or breaking someone else’s. Lucero will even raise a glass to bad weather: The frantic “Macon If We Make It” is about waiting out a hurricane in some Florida watering hole while hoping you can get far enough inland before the worst of it hits. “At the Show,” on the other hand, captures the relatively innocent excitement of playing your first gigs at a venue you’re barely old enough to patronize. It’s simply sweet rather than bittersweet, as Nichols sings about catching the eye of a young woman in the crowd and the band conveys the thrill of youthful self-expression. During their quarter-century together, Lucero have kept essentially the same lineup, beginning as a vocals-guitar-bass-drums quartet before adding multi-instrumentalist Rick Steff. Berry, still one of the most inventive drummers around, allows the band to be slippery, shifting tempo on a dime but never making a big deal of it (they’re a bar band, after all). Steff adds flourishes of E Street piano and Hi Rhythm organ, injecting these songs with a wryness that bounces off Nichols’ lyrics. On “Nothing’s Alright,” a breakup song that plays up the ambiguity of the title phrase, Lucero build tension and drama in small lurches from the rhythm section and sideways glances from Brian Venable’s guitar. There’s no rising action, no traditional crescendo; instead, you just find yourself in the midst of some emotional turmoil, the way a bad memory can come out of nowhere to sour your day. Lucero have never been known for cracking jokes, but what really distinguishes Should’ve Learned by Now from their previous barroom musings is the humor in these songs. Nichols and the band are alive to the little ironies and indignities that anyone faces while searching for the bottom of a bottle. “Half of what runs through my head is bullshit I sell to myself,” Nichols explains on the title track. “And the other half ain’t well thought out.” And Steff plays his accordion solo on closer “Time to Go Home” with what sounds like an arched eyebrow and a shake of the head, as though he’s asked for Nichols’ keys too many times. They’re always the butt of their own jokes, which makes them good company for a late night but also makes these songs hit a little harder the next morning.

Review (Americana Highways) : The basis of Lucero’s sound has always been a gut-bucket hybrid of Southern rock and punk. Even when they added Memphis-flavored horns in 2009’s 1372 Overton Park or dipped into synthy 80s sci-fi in 2021’s When You Found Me, Ben Nichols’ crew kept the guitars front and center, creating one of the most consistent catalogs in Americana. Their 12th studio album, Should’ve Learned By Now, finds the band circling back to what they do best – road songs and late-night drinking dirges that mine two-plus decades worth of less-than-advisable living, while also beginning to reckon with the lasting damage incurred from that lifestyle. On recent releases, especially Among the Ghosts, Nichols has embraced a thematic maturity, writing about how marriage and first-time fatherhood are affected by being the leader of a band that spends 100 or more nights on the road each year. Turns out, though, he’s still got plenty of stories from Lucero’s younger days, and that’s mostly where Should’ve Learned By Now lands. The album’s lead single, “One Last F.U.,” is just what it says: a cowbell-led kiss-off about a downhill-headed night at a bar – “Now it seems this bourbon/Well I’m not sure if it’s working – spent next to that one guy who just won’t shut up – “Either way it’s time that I move on.” Old-school Lucero seems to have spent a lot of time in dives (surely, Nichols didn’t develop that rasp teaching Sunday school). “At The Show” follows the narrator’s evolution from underage concertgoer to onstage performer, all the time chasing the song and, mor importantly, the girl – “Maybe she’ll hear these songs I write/Maybe if she’s at the show tonight” (and, really, isn’t that what rock ‘n’ roll’s always been about?) The heartland-y “Macon if We Make It” picks up the band a little later on, touring their way through Georgia during a storm – “The hurricane makes landfall/And they serve another round/It’s Macon if we make it/Savannah if we drown.” A Lucero record review wouldn’t be complete without a nod to one of Americana’s MVPs, keyboardist Rick Steff. While his synths were a hallmark of When You Found Me, his work here is subtler, but no less vital. Whether it’s a wandering piano solo on “She Leads Me,” his organ bouncing off Brian Venable’s guitar on the title track, or some good ol’ accordion on album-closer “Time to Go Home,” Steff’s work is one of the characteristics that sets Lucero aside from other modern-day Southern rock outfits. All those best aspects of the band come together in the late-night waltz of regret, “Drunken Moon.” Jesse Davis and Cory Branan stop by to chip in harmonies while Nichols tries to drink off the outset of another lonely day – “Just before sunrise the moon starts to fade/Where are you going my friend?/We’re just getting started, don’t bring on/The sunlight again.” If these Memphis boys are in a happier, healthier place now, why pause to dig up these old, painful memories? To recognize where they’re at and what led them here while setting fire to the bridge that might lead them back. As Nichols indicated on his 2019 ode to his daughter, “Hello My Name Is Izzy,” it’s better on this side. Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “Nothing’s Alright” – the most punk-leaning song on the record with the dubious refrain, “But I don’t think about her anymore…Now I don’t think about her much.” Should’ve Learned By Now was produced, engineered and mixed by Matt Ross-Spang and mastered by Jonathan Pines. All songs written by Ben Nichols. Lucero is Nichols (vocals, acoustic and electric guitars), Brian Venable (electric guitar), Roy Berry (drums and percussion), John C. Stubblefield (bass guitar) and Rick Steff (piano, B3, Moog), with Jesse Davis and Cory Branan contributing background vocals.