UNCLE LUCIUS
And You Are Me
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The mental mix tapes in the minds of each member of Uncle Lucius would make for some mighty fine road trippin’ music across Texas — and there’d be enough musical diversity to keep a Greyhound full of unlike-minded vagabonds content. On And You Are Me, the Austin band’s third release, Uncle Lucius dips into a rich stash of musical styles and tastes to create a sound all their own, yet vaguely familiar. You’ll detect whiffs of late-period Beatles on the kaleidoscopic “Willing Wasted Time,” get a hint of the Brothers Allman riffing into “Somewhere Else,” and hear Rodney Crowell’s graceful influence on the exquisite ballad of hard times in the shadows of H-town’s oil refineries. But it’s on “Pocketful of Misery” where the band brings it all together best, with Keith Richards-like licks and economic rock rollin’ from lead guitarist Michael Carpenter, a window-rattlin’ horn section, and powerful vocals by Kevin Galloway spinning a T-Bone Walker worthy tale of bluesy, hard-luck woe. While there a few jejune lyrical observations, with “All We’ve Got Is Now” and its pedestrian paean to the present (“There’ no past, there’s no future, all we’ve got is now”) and a lovestruck philosophy major’s insight on “I Am You” (“I am you, you are me, I love me, I love you”), it’s the gratifying grooves that really move the needle here. And You Are Me is both timeless and novel music you’ll want to go back to time and time again. — D.C. BLOOM

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