Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real - Wasted

More Promise Than Real

Lukas Nelson’s vocal is a little less the acquired taste than his father’s, but it still occupies that familial higher nasal’n’twang register. It is for me a welcome, distinguishing feature. In reviewing Lukas’ previous album, Promise of the Real, I like other commentators referred to the father/son link, and this has been reinforced by the shared vocals on their Pearl Jam cover Just Breathe to be released on Willie’s new album Heroes. This is essentially a softly crooned version that does little other than re-present a good song with the noted Nelsonesque tone. As tributes go, it’s good enough to see Willie at least keeping the ear in, not that this is his first time.

On Lukas’ previous album there were two stand-out tracks – Toppers and Pali Gap – Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) – and that’s the quality of what I’m looking for on this latest offering. After quite an average start, 4^th track Frame of Mind gets nearest at this point, though this too is straightforward rather than anything sparkling, but it is a tenderly sung ballad that demonstrates the attraction of Lukas’ voice. Next track The Joint is similarly slow and melodic, focusing lyrically on one of the running themes of this album which is smoking pot. It is a strange narrative indulgence, but I guess it has occupied much of Lukas and possibly his band Promise of the Real’s time on their recent extensive touring. 

It’s not until 6^th Don’t Take Me Back that we get some reasonably aggressive guitar work leading a song. Interestingly, and worryingly for some early observers, that narrative preoccupation sets the immediate scene: I was sitting in my daddy’s car with a joint in both of my hands smokin’ until the smoke wouldn’t stop and the window rolled down and I’m rollin’ around in my mind and that injection of the ‘rolling’ metaphor seems a tad unimaginative if honest. The song turns out to be a chugging blues which is reasonably engaging, but it doesn’t really take us very far down the road musically or in illuminating the point of concentrating so heavily on smoking dope.

9^th Running Away gets lively with its use of percussion – various drumming and handclaps – as well as whistling. By 10^th Heart of the Matter I’m finding that it’s these slower country blues ballads [thanks here to pedal steel] which connect the most, and that’s because of the vocal which by now seems to draw on Willie’s country tinge for impact as much as the genetic sound. It is an emotive singing here, rising climatically to its end. Ditto 11^th Can You Hear Me Love You. What I thought from the beginning would be another rock album, as average as that sound is, has actually leant much more to these ballads, and 12^th I Won’t Fail Her is quite a pretty acoustic folk tune with a dominant angelic chorus providing a sonic twist at this near-end of the album. Perhaps my favourite on the album. The title track Wasted comes in as the penultimate 13^th song, and, naturally, this revisits the marijuana mulling in a belts and braces basic rock. One presumes it was selected as the title track more for its story than sound, and this is borne out by Lukas’ comments on how the songs on this album reflect the time wasted on the tour road with the journeying itself but also late night indulgences, as well as the more poignant sense of loss and wasted time in being away from loved ones.

The album finishes on the nine minutes of If I Was The Ocean which continues with the slower pace that I have preferred as a relative choice on this. Pedal steel and guitar sweeps provide an expansive sound, but it isn’t a particularly distinct melody, and the closing guitar jam is something I would like to have heard more within other tracks. Anyone reading this would understandably question why I’ve written so much to celebrate so little. It’s a review written on the listen which I like to do, and I had some genuine, positive expectation because of Lukas’ previous which had impressed in parts. It is only a first listen too, but my feeling is there was more compulsive urge than thoughtful composition in the recording and release of this material. I’d like to see Lukas and the band live where they are widely reported to be brilliant, and I look forward to a third album release that reflects and then builds upon the occasional excellence of the first.