Ten years ago, I bought this album
Good Grief by Lucius. Like a number
of other artists represented in my
collection, I do not remember how
I was turned on to their music.
If I were to make an educated guess,
it’d be that I was reading glowing
reviews, or that this album was
showing up on various favorite lists
by critics or magazines I trusted.
Listening to it now, probably for
the first time in almost a decade,
it sounds only vaguely familiar,
a record I listened to maybe a dozen
times and then put away. But I must
have liked it–enough to buy the
follow up two years later, Nudes.
It’s the 80’s all over again with this
synth-heavy, female lead vocal,
hooky-as-all-get-out pop music,
reminiscent of Madonna but with
lyrics more literary, compositional
maneuvers more complex, production
choices more colorful, more dense, and
vocal performances that are more
edgy, more inventive. The two
voices of dual lead singers, Jess
Wolf and Holly Laessig is a powerful
concoction. Good Grief is undeniably
a good record–every song has something
to recommend it. If one were interested
in a sample from a favorite streaming
service, one should go directly
to “Born Again Teen.” Buried
deep on side two of this album, it
nevertheless rocks harder and is more
catchy than almost anything else
on the record.
I’m not sure I knew what I was doing
when I picked up Nudes in 2018. Not
listed as a studio release in their wiki-
discography, I read that it is instead
a compilation record of acoustic versions
of older songs and a trio of covers,
one of which is a collaboration
with Roger Waters from Pink Floyd.
Light percussion, very little drum set,
it’s mostly acoustic guitar and the
duo’s lovely voices. The Gerry Rafferty cover
of “Right Down the Line” is a surprise and
a bit of a revelation. They do it well,
and somehow raise the bar, remove
most of the cheese from the original.
Compared to Good Grief, Nudes is subdued,
intimate. Even the rockers are quiet.
Gone is the bombast of electronic and rock
drums, loads of synthesizers, and big production.
I have a feeling, though, that this was not
a new direction for the group, but rather
a one-off experiment. I probably did not
know that at the time–while I like this
record, it doesn’t float the boats like
Good Grief does, and maybe that’s why
I stopped following them almost eight
years ago now. Part of my music brain
is curious about what they’re up to
on their most recent studio record, the
eponymously titled Lucius. The other
part of my music brain thinks that
between these two fine albums, albums
that I like but am not totally gaga over,
I have enough Lucius in the collection.
Notes on the vinyl editions: Good Grief, Mom and Pop Records, 2016, translucent blue vinyl. Nudes, Mom and Pop Records, 2018, opaque earth brown vinyl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 