Lance Lopez - Trouble Is Good

When ‘Jam With Me’ kicks in, it seems apt that Gregg Bissonette is guesting on the drum stool, because the lead single from Lance Lopez’s new album Trouble Is Good doesn’t half remind me of Dave Lee Roth’s ‘Knucklebones’, on which Bissonette did the tub-thumping.  It’s a catchy, bouncing tune with a good-time vibe that declares “A little rock’n’roll sets you free”, and underlines that sentiment with good riffing, a bundle of slide fills from Lopez, a squealing solo, and some neat variations in the backing.  All in all it’s three and a half minutes of rocking goodness.

Lance Lopez weighs the benefits of wearing shades indoors

‘Jam With Me’ may be the high point on Trouble Is Good, but there are some other goodies worth hearing too.  At one end the opener ‘Easy To Leave’ comes with a jarring riff over thumping bass’n’drums, while adopted Texan Lopez delivers his vocal with a satisfying rasp redolent of Albert Castiglia.  There’s a skating slide break too, plus a nifty revolving bridge and a punchy Lopez solo, all banged out with conviction.  And at the other end the closer ‘Voyager’ is a quite different proposition.  A seven-minute quasi-epic ostensibly in three parts, it opens in atmospheric style, combining swirling guitar and phased drum sounds, then some Blackmore-like Arabic picking over washes of keyboards.  The mid-section leans on some Page-like, discordantly jangling chords, on the way to a swooping’n’soaring conclusion, before a wistful coda, illustrating Lopez’s musical range.
Okay, so along the way from alpha to omega the quality can be a bit variable, with the off-the-leash power of ‘Take A Swing’ sounding rhythmically messy, while ‘Trying In The Tri-Star State’ is a mid-tempo paean to Nashville that’s a bit of plod.  But Lopez’s guitar playing is always there to grab your attention, with a blistering solo on the former, and some harem-scarem fretwork enlivening the latter.  And if the title track is a tad predictable, it's still well done, a sturdy thing that has balls and swing to give some younger hotshots a run for their money, embellished with some warped slide work and a squawking harp solo to add a rootsy vibe.
‘Uncivil War’ is also convincing, not exactly a ballad but a fatigued reflection on modern times, offering the bitter comment “I'm getting sick and tired of this uncivil war”, dappled with some watery Fender Rhodes piano.  ‘Slow Down’ is another nod towards Diamond Dave territory – slower and glossier, with a bright spiky riff matched to a loose, inviting rhythm, and if the chorus is a bit simplistic it’s still effective enough.  ‘Reborn’ is even better, with a bit of swing and a 60s vibe reinforcing an upbeat lyric and mood, and with some nifty guitar breaks suggesting that Lopez is having plenty fun.
The PR bumf suggests that Lance Lopez is a descendant of the Texas blues scene that fostered Stevie Ray Vaughan and ZZ Top, but those aren’t really the kind of sounds that I hear.  To my ears Lopez is more of a hard rocker, sometimes suggestive of Ted Nugent in the bright and breezy form of Weekend Warriors – though ‘Voyager’ shows that he also has other strings to his bow. Trouble Is Good makes for a pretty enjoyable 40 minutes – and it’s definitely worth getting an earful of ‘Jam With Me’.
 
Trouble Is Good is out now on Cleopatra Records.

Lance Lopez - Live in NYC

As Ted Nugent once delicately put it, “Anybody wants to get mellow you can turn around and get the fuck outta here, alright?!”

The Nuge is pretty unfashionable nowadays, but there’s no denying that the man knew how to put the hammer down on a heavy blues rock riff.  And so it is with Lance Lopez.

Lopez has been garnering attention lately as one of the cornerstones of Supersonic Blues Machine, but this recently released live album recorded at BB King’s in New York catches him on his day job, as it were, with his own trio.  A southern boy brought up in Louisiana and Texas, it’s little wonder that he claims Stevie Ray Vaughan and Billy Gibbons as influences.  What he serves up here though, is something altogether heavier.

Lance Lopez does the "itchy nose in mid-solo" face

Lopez has a rich growl of a voice, and a meaty, fuzzy, guttural guitar tone, and he puts them to good use on the trio of strapping self-penned tunes that opens this set – the chugging R&B of ‘Come Back Home’, ‘Hard Time’, and the entertaining tale of falling out with your woman that is ‘Get Out And Walk’.  Think Pat Travers in ‘Snortin’ Whiskey’ mode, for example.  Think bone-crunching riffs – the last of the triptych in particular coming on like a Force 10 gale delivered by the aforementioned Nugent, with a rhythm section of King Kong dimensions in the form of Chris Reddan on drums and Mike Nunno on bass.

Elsewhere they spread out and get more expansive, on the slow blues of ‘Lowdown Ways’ and the closer ‘El Paso Sugar’.  When he puts his mind to it Lopez is an exponent of rip it up, speed freak soloing, and on both of these there are passages where he unleashes a blizzard of fretwork.  If that’s your bag then get ready to strap on your air guitar and pose in the mirror.  Personally though, I think a race with the devil is better as a blues metaphor than an approach to blues guitar.  So I find Lopez more interesting when he reins himself in and his guitar work makes one note count more than a hundred, as on the slower sections of ‘Lowdown Ways’ or the country blues-ish fingerpicking intro to ‘El Paso Sugar’.

Subtlety may be in relatively short supply, but there’s simply no arguing with the power.  Whether it’s the taut, bludgeoning riff on ‘El Paso Sugar’, or the focused, grinding stomp of  ‘Tell The Truth’, this is blues with the weight of Judas Priest covering ‘Green Manalishi’ – and then some.  The lightning is well bottled by producer and long-time Johnny Winter collaborator Paul Nelson – and so someone who knows a thing or two about wildness.

There’s one cover here that just about it sums it up, and that is ‘Travelling Riverside Blues’.  We’re not talking hitching a ride in some jalopy through the Mississippi backwoods here.  We’re talking about hauling ass down the freeway in some monster rig. God alone knows what Robert Johnson would make of it – perhaps just shrug his shoulders, say “What the fuck,” and reach for his own air guitar.