Ana Lee here with my DJ pick of the week from Lucero! They’ve been a DJ pick of mine in the past, so it’s no secret that I’m a fan. Check out the latest track “Bottom of the Sea” off their most recent album Among the Ghosts available now via Thirty Tigers.
Among the Ghosts is the band’s ninth studio album, but their first for noted Nashville indie label Thirty Tigers. It was recorded and co-produced with Grammy-winning engineer/producer and Memphis native Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, Drive by Truckers) at the historic Sam Phillips Recording Service, the studio built by the legendary producer after outgrowing his Memphis Recording Service/Sun Studio.
Recorded primarily live as a five-piece, Among the Ghosts eschews the Stax-inspired horns and Jerry Lee Lewis-style boogie piano featured on some of the band’s past recordings for a streamlined rock & roll sound that pays homage to their seminal influences as it seeks to push that legacy into the future. For a band who carried the torch of the alt-country movement back in the 90’s and helped pave the way for what is now called Americana, Lucero have re-discovered what inspired them in the first place. The sound is more their own and at the same time not exactly like anything they’ve done before. This is a band settling into their craft. The 10-song disc’s title is both a tribute to the spirits which roam the streets of their fabled city, as well as the hard road the determinedly independent band set out on 20 years ago.
Listen to the Dire Straits-meets-War on Drugs guitar pyrotechnics in “Bottom of the Sea” and let us know what you think!
