Austin Lucas – Somebody Loves You

To be clear: this is country music. Just so you know.

To be absolutely clear: Somebody Loves You is an unabashed, full-tilt, no-apologies country album. It doesn’t try to be more than that or merge heretofore unmerged genres to create something marketable to the kids (“Dude, it’s grind-country! This shit slays!”). It’s country music and, to my surprise, I’m absolutely floored on it.

Somebody Loves You serves as my first full introduction to Austin Lucas’ music. I’d previously heard a demo version of “Go West” that people have apparently been shitting themselves over for some time, and for good reason: lyrically, it’s one of the best “catch you on the flip side” break up songs I’ve ever heard in my life. But more importantly – and this seems like a rarity in this day and age – Somebody Loves You works nearly seamlessly as an album. I can’t help but feel that, were one song removed or any of the tracks switched around, the power of the album would’ve somehow been lessened. It’s that good and feels that complete.

Incredibly well-crafted and well-played, with Lucas’ incredible vocal range put to use all throughout, it’s an album that’s brimming over with melody and laced with melancholy. That’s loaded with brilliant imagery and lyrics that could easily be called poetry, without the nasty aftertaste a word like that often implies. It’s heaped with love songs – to women, family, place, the idea of identity and self-worth – that call to mind adjectives that should be at odds with each other but somehow aren’t: bitter and hopeful, weepy and joyous. It’s a record that my twenty year-old self would have scoffed at – muttering about how “This shit ain’t punk”, despite Lucas’ musical background being steeped in punk history – and yet now, at my age, something I consider to be easily one of the best “singer/songwriter” albums I’ve heard in the past five years.

From the rollicking slide guitar on “Wash My Sins Away”, the subdued menace of the title track, the bright sense of redemption in “Shoulders”, the delicate mix of acoustic ballads and more instrument-heavy tracks, there isn’t a weak song on the album. The whole thing works. Me at twenty would’ve shaken his head in disgust at this album. As it stands now, I find myself repeatedly hitting the Play button. Somebody Loves You is an absolute joy to listen to; I feel fortunate to have heard it.