ROUTES & BRANCHES 
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
October 25, 2020
Scott Foley, making do
We make do. I was talking to one of my kids the other day. This one works full time in a very busy consumer electronics store. So he's masked several hours every day. He tells me that when he turns for home it feels odd to remove his mask. In a different vein, I read about a Japanese tourist who was visiting Peru when the world shuttered for business. He's lived in a small village there for the past eight months, and was just permitted to visit the closed Machu Picchu by the government.
Typically operating out of Indiana, Austin Lucas was in Germany when travel restrictions stranded him. We make do. Lucas took advantage of the situation and of some providential networking, and he created Alive in the Hot Zone, released by Cornelius Chapel next week. Lucas' work has been a part of R&B playlists since pre-blog days, on the occasion of his 2007 Putting the Hammer Down. Curiously, as we incorporated his terrific 'grass-fed collaboration with Chuck Ragan, Bristle Ridge, his 2013 New West debut, Stay Reckless, and the 2016 heartland masterpiece, Between the Moon & the Midwest, it would seem every single record landed at the Number 10 spot on our respective year-end favorites list. I crowned Lucas my favorite americana vocalist. With the dawn of 2018's more vulnerable, more risk-taking Immortal Americans, a project for which the songwriter collaborated with Will Johnson and Steve Albini, Lucas was finally promoted to the Number 6 spot on my favorites list.
Just as Austin Lucas' voice sounds like no one else, this new collection takes his sound into unexplored territory. Like his former collaborator Lydia Loveless, even as he strays further from a trad roots setting, his voice assures that he'll never fully shake off the americana and alt.country dirt. On Alive in the Hot Zone, we're witness to Lucas' evolution from an observer of people to a commentator on moral indignity and the Great American Shortcoming of the past couple years. An increasingly deft songwriter, he never loses track of the fact that all our political unrest rests in the heart and the home of individuals.
While Lucas has plugged in throughout his career, Hot Zone is far and away his first project largely defined by the roar and grind of the electric guitar. "Already Dead" drops listeners immediately into the deep end, crowding our ears with rock guitar and bold drums. Lucas has also dragged his music unapologetically into the political light: Folks say old pals / Should bury the hatchet / That expression's so adequate / For an Evolian fascist / Who doesn't even know / What the fuck that is. The song challenges on all sides, Lucas' vocal pushing to new heights to rise above the electric fray. He rages against complacency and resignation: Go on, go on / Stand where you stand / Because everyone dies in the end. You in?
The stylized jacket art of Alive in the Hot Zone portrays Lucas, like a young countercultural hero, raising his leather collar as shadowy militaristic forces approach from the shadows. It's a fitting backdrop for a song like "American Pyre", with its vaguely retro guitars and targeting of elitist college towns. Those smoldering guitars are wielded by Lucas and by producer Oli Ruger, who also includes bass and keys among his arsenal. Suffice it to say that our world has changed. As Lucas sings above the skittering drums of "Truth is Supposed to Hurt": God damn you / God damn me / Ain't no glory in the way things used to be. A slower simmering arrangement erupts with a barely contained guitar solo, shooting sparks into the dark: Damn these proud white boys / Their bright futures and their fake news.
That sense that our world is askew lurks throughout these sessions, even as Lucas focuses our attention through the curtains and into the living rooms of our working families. "Cry Over" recognizes that our horrors are inherited, handed down like a ticking bomb from one generation to the next. He asks: Tell me all of your thoughts / What ties your stomach into knots ... What do you cry over / If not these things. While he points fingers, Lucas places himself squarely into these scenarios, strolling along the snowy streets on the introspective "Middle Years": My teeth dance / To songs no one can hear / A subtle smile / Framed by tears.
It's in these scenes of heartland decay where Austin Lucas continues to shine brightest as a writer. The acoustic strum and organ of "Anyone" rise to a scorched earth squall, an impactful highlight of Alive in the Hot Zone. He lays bare his own heart: If I could be anyone / I would be myself / If I could be anyone / I'd be me / And know how to love myself / Like I love good drugs / Long nights / And fights / The way I love bad blood. He opens the beautiful acoustic "The Times" with a remarkable line: When I was a boy / I stole my sister's clothes. The relative bombast that fills the rest of the record from corner to sonic corner serves to make these quieter confessional moments stand out more starkly.
Even as Lucas ventures a boot-clad toe into middle age, he continues to invest his music with a youthful fearlessness on cuts like "Shaking". Looser and more groove-oriented, the song is propelled by steady drums and tambourine. He balances youthful abandon with the dawning realization of life's creeping, inescapable distractions: You said there must be more to life than this / We should be somewhere closing out a bar / Collecting perfect kisses. Another highlight, "Drive" cruises on a retro spirit, placing the narrator behind the wheel, pointing his car into the night: What do you think about / What goes in and out your mind / Watching white lines go by / Listen to the motor hum / Play the steering wheel like a drum / La da dum dum / Into the night.
An artist like Austin Lucas accepts a risk everytime he urges his music into unexplored territory. But it's also these moments that establish integrity and define a career. There's an effortlessness and a perennially boyish appeal to Lucas' voice, whether he's giving voice to populist concerns or questioning his own priorities. Even in light of Hot Zone's hot, buzzing guitars and sense of social urgency, the collection is a fitting step in a discography that has never found him covering familiar ground. It's a suitable soundtrack as we accept Lucas' invitation: Sit back / Relax / And watch the American pyre.
WHAT's SO GREAT ABOUT OCTOBER?!!
Here, we'll plow through the copious number of October album releases in hopes of targeting just five (5) favorites for the past month. Will this be clean and easy? No, it will not. Nevertheless, we persist (in order of appearance, of course):
- Bonnie Whitmore, Last Will & Testament (Startlet & Dog, Oct 2)
- Cut Worms, Nobody Lives Here Anymore (Jagjaguwar, Oct 9)
- Low Cut Connie, Private Lives (Contender, Oct 13)
- Sturgill Simpson, Cuttin' Grass Vol 1: Butcher Shoppe Sessions (High Top Mt, Oct 16)
- Austin Lucas, Alive in the Hot Zone (Cornelius Chapel, Oct 30)
Yes, that would be six (6). But it's been a crazy busy month, and I suppose it's just a good thing I haven't has as much of a chance to focus on each 'n every October offering. As stuff slows to a trickle in November, we're eagerly anticipating new arrivals from Chris Stapleton, John Calvin Abney, Ward Davis and more.
- Rosanne Cash, "Crawl Into the Promised Land" single (Plainsong, 20) D
- William Elliott Whitmore, "Put It To Use" I'm With You (Bloodshot, 20)
- Rachel Brooke, "It Ain't Over 'Til You're Crying" Loneliness in Me (Brooke, 20)
- David Quinn, "I Hope I Don't" Letting Go (Quinn, 20)
- Steve Wynn, "Southern California Line" Decade (Real Gone, 20) D
- Low Cut Connie, "Charyse" Private Lives (Contender, 20)
- Juanita Stein, "1 2 3 4 5 6" Snapshot (Handwritten, 20)
- Laura Veirs, "Freedom Feeling" My Echo (Raven Marching Band, 20)
- John Hiatt, "Lift Every Stone" Crossing Muddy Waters (Vector, 00)
- Dead Tongues, "State Line" Transmigration Blues (Deluxe Edition) (Psychic Hotline, 20)
- Kacy & Clayton with Marlon Williams, "I Wonder Why" Plastic Bouquet (New West, Dec 11) D
- Cut Worms, "Louisiana Rain" single (Jagjaguwar, 20) D
- Sierra Ferrell, "Jeremiah" single (Rounder, 20) D
- Replacements, "Photo (Studio Demo)" Pleased to Meet Me: Deluxe Edition (Rhino, 20) D
- Lambchop, "Golden Lady" Trip (Merge, Nov 13)
- Sturgill Simpson, "Breakers Roar" Cuttin' Grass Vol 1: Butcher Shoppe Sessions (High Top Mt, 20)
- Becky Warren, "Birmingham" Sick Season (Warren, 20)
- Dave Hause, "Poor Man's House" Patty EP (Soundly, 20)
- Jeff Tweedy, "Robin or a Wren" Love is the King (dBpm, 20)
- Lera Lynn, "What I'm Looking For" On My Own (Lynn, 20)
- Will Kimbrough, "Philadelphia Mississippi" Spring Break (Daphne, 20)
- John Prine, "Saddle in the Rain" Crooked Piece of Time: Atlantic & Asylum Years (Rhino, 20) D
- Staves, "Good Woman" Good Woman (Nonesuch, Feb 5) D
- Julien Baker, "Faith Healer" Little Oblivions (Matador, Feb 26) D
- Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy, "Red Tailed Hawk (feat. Matt Kinsey)" single (Drag City, 20) D
- Beat Farmers, "Gun Sale at the Church" Van Go (Curb, 86)
- Lucero, "Outrun the Moon" When You Found Me (Liberty & Lament, Jan 29) D
- Chris Stapleton, "Arkansas" Starting Over (Mercury Nashville, Nov 13)
- Over the Rhine, "How Long Have You Been Stoned" Ohio (Great Speckled Dog, 03)
- Iris Dement, "Going Down to Sing In Texas" single (Flariella, 20) D
Speaking of eagerly awaited releases, we've added a few high-profile packages this week to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, most of those planned for an early 2021 debut. We'll put a pin firmly in January 29th, when Lucero has announced the dawning of When You Found Me (Liberty & Lament). That same day, we're curious about the Cornelius Chapel label's plans for The Parlor from Alabama Slim. That collection will include some contributions by folks like Jimbo Mathus and Drive-by Trucker Matt Patton. Just announced, New West will share Aaron Lee Tasjan's next studio record on February 5th. It has been christened Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!, and we can't ignore an album with three exclamation points ... ! We'll also share our enthusiasm for Julien Baker's pending project. Little Oblivion will appear wherever music matters on February 25 (Matador).
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