{"id":4067,"date":"2025-07-29T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ben-nichols-leans-into-poetry-and-his-arkansas-past-on-new-solo-record\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T14:00:00","slug":"ben-nichols-leans-into-poetry-and-his-arkansas-past-on-new-solo-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ben-nichols-leans-into-poetry-and-his-arkansas-past-on-new-solo-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Nichols Leans Into Poetry and His Arkansas Past On New Solo Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/nichols-mountain.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"\u2018In the Heart of the Mountain\u2019 was released on July 25.\"><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Lucero keeps Ben Nichols busy. The Memphis-based collective has been going strong since 1998, touring constantly and releasing acclaimed albums, such as their 12th LP <em>Should\u2019ve Learned by Now <\/em>(2023). Earlier this year, Nichols and Rick Steff put out <em>Lucero Unplugged, <\/em>a collection of stripped-down favorites from the band\u2019s vast discography. It\u2019s no wonder that <em>In the Heart of the Mountain<\/em> (July 25), is only Nichols\u2019 second solo album and first in 16 years.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/john-oswald-turns-the-grateful-deads-dark-star-into-a-black-hole\/\">John Oswald Turns the Grateful Dead\u2019s \u2018Dark Star\u2019 into a Black Hole<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/talking-heads-reissue-campaign-offers-more-versions-of-more-songs-about-buildings-and-food\/\">Talking Heads Reissue Campaign Offers More Versions of \u2018More Songs About Buildings and Food\u2019<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/eyedress-takes-his-bedroom-pop-into-the-studio\/\">Eyedress Takes His Bedroom Pop into the Studio<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Though Lucero\u2019s songs are often gritty and rough-hewn, the melancholy that seeps from <em>In the Heart of the Mountain <\/em>is distinct from Nichols\u2019 primary project. There is no room here for rollicking songs such as \u201cOne Last F.U.\u201d from Lucero\u2019s last record. Instead, Nichols has written a collection of haunting songs inspired by his Arkansas upbringing and the poetry of Frank Stanford, an American writer who died by suicide in Fayetteville, Arkansas, at age 29 in 1978.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1290\" height=\"861\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2172048163-1290x861.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-469447\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2172048163-1290x861.jpg 1290w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2172048163-340x227.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2172048163-240x160.jpg 240w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2172048163-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2172048163-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2172048163-498x332.jpg 498w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2172048163-1668x1113.jpg 1668w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">(L-R) Singer\/guitarist Ben Nichols, drummer Roy Berry and bassist John C. Stubblefield of Lucero perform at The Amp Ballantyne on September 14, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Credit: Jeff Hahne\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Nichols is no stranger to literary inspiration. His first record, <em>The Last Pale Light in the West <\/em>(2009), was inspired by Cormac McCarthy\u2019s novel <em>Blood Meridian. <\/em>Nichols learned about Stanford after a stranger mailed him a copy of the poet\u2019s collected works. Never much of a poetry reader, Nichols saw a symmetry in his own lyrics and Stanford\u2019s lines, which he called \u201csoaked in Southern tones\u2026and pushing at the edges of Southern decorum.\u201d Taken in order, the record\u2019s 11 song titles line up to form a poem, one that serves as a mission statement of sorts for an album that explores the mythos of Southern living.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With MorganEve Swain on violin and backing vocals, Cory Branan on guitar, and Todd Beene on pedal steel and electric guitar, <em>In the Heart of the Mountain <\/em>allows Nichols to stretch out without the democracy involved with being part of a band. His distinctive voice is higher up in the mix, and the songs here feel introspective and don\u2019t rock like Lucero tracks. They are also more personal. The title track, for example, is a tribute to Nichols\u2019 wife and how she keeps him sane, using a mountain as a metaphor for stability. Meanwhile, lead single \u201cFading Back into Night\u201d returns to the notion of feeling like a failure, a theme prevalent in Nichols\u2019 songwriting. But rather than turn into a full-throated Lucero sing-along, \u201cFading\u201d is gentle with its fingerpicked guitar and its poetic imagery of stars vanishing as the sun rises.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, \u201cShe\u2019s Starlight in the River\u201d references Don Henley\u2019s \u201cThe Boys of Summer\u201d but, instead of a coastal milieu, Nichols invokes the humid magic of an Arkansas summer night. The album closes with \u201cThe Devil Takes His Leave,\u201d a meditative, midtempo track that features the lyric, \u201cI don\u2019t know if God has a plan, but I\u2019m sure the Devil does<em>.<\/em>\u201d But this time, Nichols has his wife and his family to keep Satan away.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For fans of Lucero, <em>In the Heart of the Mountain <\/em>is an intimate offering, a look at a side of Nichols that is both darker and more tender than his band\u2019s usual output. It is an authentic album of expressive honesty and poetic reach, steeped in the Arkansas lore of Nichols\u2019 youth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lucero keeps Ben Nichols busy. The Memphis-based collective has been going strong since 1998, touring constantly and releasing acclaimed albums, such as their 12th LP Should\u2019ve Learned by Now (2023).&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2989,2990,24,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ben-nichols","category-lucero","category-pushly","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}