Women & Work is the band’s first release for ATO Records, home to kindred spirits like My Morning Jacket, Drive-By Truckers, and Alabama Shakes, following a one-album stint with the majors for 2009’s excellent 1372 Overton Park. That was the first Lucero album to incorporate horns, and they reappear on Women & Work, the most conspicuous homage to the Memphis sound pioneered by the city’s Stax label. The press materials call Women & Work a love letter to Memphis, and the cliché fits; the album’s synthesis of soul, rock, and country is distinctly Memphisian.
Over the past couple of albums, Lucero has grown more comfortable wearing its regional influences, and on Women & Work, the band wears them on its sleeve. “On My Way Downtown” and “Women & Work” are classic-style rave-ups, balanced by ballads like “It May Be Too Late” and “Sometimes.” Lucero almost embraces its roots too much, as the song topics hit all the requisite marks: the “I’m a lost soul” lament (“It May Be Too Late”), the “Your man don’t treat you right” come-on (“Who You Waiting On?”), the “I can’t survive without you” wallow (“I Can’t Stand To Leave You”), the song about how things used to be different (“When I Was Young”), etc.
It all sounds familiar, and that’s the problem with Women & Work: Lucero has never sounded so assured or less distinct. Although Lucero has always been at home playing in a bar, Women & Work has more of bar-band feel—granted, a really good bar band, but something generic is creeping into Lucero’s sound. As solid as Women & Work is, it could also herald the beginning of something less interesting.
