Collaboration and project work has frequently featured in the lengthening career of Lukas Nelson. However, family, films and enhancing the work of others is slightly put in the shade on STICKS AND STONES. This self-prodcued album delivered to market with a lift from the influential Thirty Tigers operation unashamedly clicks into artist DNA. Across a dozen- strong collection Nelson guides his Promise of the Real outfit into a bubbling well of country music embracing several phases of time and motion. Trusted themes and iconic sounds froth to the top of this accessible take that brims with assured quality. Smooth and sweet to the core, the record acts as a simple timely reminder to how country music glitters in the right hands.
Head scratching moments are aplenty establishing similarities, influences and interpretations. For starters, scribing "fighting side of me" into the lyrics of title track and most recent single 'Sticks and Stones' echoed the ghost of Merle. If that is implicit, the total opposite exists when the Hank and Cash number is dialled to conjure up 'Ladder of Love' - an amalgam of pure country silver and gold.
The twists and turns continue around the midway point of this album that enacts as a 35-minute spin of jukebox joy. Sizzling guitar in 'Wrong House' is straight out of the 50s rock 'n' roll playbook curated by Holly and Didley. The subsequent track 'Icarus' echoes a decade earlier when country music flourished in juke joints as the world emerged from its major war. Projecting the time capsule 40 years forward, the duet with Lainey Wilson flirts with an age where country mingled with the classic pop of the day to zoom into the homes of everyday folk. Think something Parton, Gibb and Rogers could have turned their hand to and you enter the sphere of 'More Than Friends'.
You can't make a country album without a nod to the odd tipple. It is spirits puns galore in 'Alchohallelujah', while 'Every Time I Drink' leaves very little to the imagination. This pair of tracks follow in the tailwind of the opener and ensure the album sets its stall out in a marked way.
Ballads shuffle into place in the closing stages. 'The View' is a raw and sensitive finale stripping the content down to basics exposing the voice of Nelson to its skeletal credential. There is a soulful lilt to the vocals and from a personal perspective there is much similarity to UK roots maestro Danny Wilson. In fact the ballads start a couple of tracks earlier with 'Lying' before a blast of harmonica opens the penultimate track 'All Four Winds'. Not surprising in the context of the work the Promise of the Real have done with Neil Young.
A slice of spicy twang leads you into 'If I Didn't Love You'; another head scratching track to what it reminds you of. A few tinkled ivories add to the simplicity of this short ditty. 'Overpass' follows and is a little longer throwing a softly weaved laid back blanket around the sound.
STICKS AND STONES doesn't require any pre-determined knowledge to who Lukas Nelson is and what the Promise of the Real have done. It just smartly stands alone as an accomplished listen and polished take on what constitutes an acutely spun record reflecting the past on a modern pedestal.
