Ben Nichols In the Heart of the Mountain
Over the past 15 years or so, Lucero has reliably been one of my favorite bands. And even if we haven’t received a proper album from them in a little over two years, their front man has given us a couple of excellent releases in 2025. Back in January, Ben Nichols and keyboard/synth player Rick Steff released a highly enjoyable acoustic collection of 20 Lucero favorites. Now, Nichols has a solo album coming out – 11 originals, loosely connected by the tissue of Nichols’ Arkansas upbringing and Southern mythmaking. In the Heart of the Mountain haunts the listener with melancholy as thick as, well (as Nichols so adeptly puts it), “river mud.”
Nichols’ previous solo offering, 2009’s Last Pale Light in the West, was based around Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. While In the Heart of the Mountain doesn’t have a specific literary tie-in, it shares (and, because it’s more personal, at times exceeds) that album’s darkness. The title track is a steel-inflected look at faltering mental health – “I can hear the Devil howling/His dogs bark and bay in the glen.” The rugged guitar solo is countered by a lovely violin line from Morgan Eve Swain (her work repeatedly stands out on the record – I’d love to hear her on more Lucero performances in the future). The album’s first single, “Back Into the Night,” is a riffy reverie on missed opportunities and decaying friendships – “What have I done?/It’s all liability/No viability/We fade one by one” – washed in twin guitars (ever the Southerner, this record finds Nichols digging deeper into Southern rock standards even more than the typical Lucero record).
The darkest moments of Nichols’ solo work – maybe even blacker than a McCarthy novel, which is no small feat – come in the companion songs “She’s Starlight in the River” and “The Swamper’s Lament.” The former features chime-y guitars and the inky imagery I mentioned above – “The summer night sticks to my skin like river mud.” While this song is ostensibly about early, fervid love, one line – “Her silhouette a swamper’s dream” – hints at the murder ballad found two tracks later. “The Swamper’s Lament,” full of acoustic and electric guitar, pedal steel and violin, begins on death row before flashing back to the beautiful Ida Belle (perhaps that silhouette?) and her betrothed, Big Jim Stone, who ends up, well, in pieces – “Ida Belle let out a scream/One morning just after dawn/When I pushed Jim in the bandsaw mill/The big man, he was gone.” The song climaxes in a buzzsaw of a guitar solo as The Swamper ends up alone and in prison, “For the loving things I’ve done.” This song, like several on the record, originated from a different project, but it ended up as Nichols’ first murder ballad (and a good one).
In the Heart of the Mountain isn’t all black, swampy death and demons, though. Circling back to the title track, it’s humanity (in this case, Nichols’ wife) that keeps the Devil at bay – “You’ve fought hard enough for one day/In the heart of the mountain you’re safe.” In the decade and a half since Last Pale Light in the West, Nichols has become a husband, a father, and even a sort of alt-country elder statesman. The place of experience he’s writing from is different, and happier. But he can still reach back and conjure up a damn good yarn.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “I’m in Over My Head” – the most balls-out rocker on the record has the narrator finally waking up to the fact that the relationship that EVERYONE else knows is catastrophic is finally – blessedly – ready to implode – “I want to hear you say you love me/I don’t think it’s looking like you do” – if he’ll only let it.
In the Heart of the Mountain was produced by Ben Nichols and Matt Ross-Spang, engineered by Ross-Spang and mastered by Richard Dodd. All songs written by Nichols. Musicians on the album include Nichols (lead vocals, acoustic guitars, drums, percussion), Morgan Eve Swain (violin, backing vocals), Todd Beene (pedal steel, electric guitar, backing vocals) and Cory Branan (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals).
Go here to order In the Heart of the Mountain (out July 25): https://bennichols.merchtable.com/music/
Check out tour dates here: https://luceromusic.com/tour/
Enjoy our previous coverage here: Key to the Highway: Ben Nichols
