Uncle Lucius: “Open Eyes, Broken Heart”
Two decades into their career, Uncle Lucius aren’t interested in nostalgia. They’re more interested in turning the highlights of the past twenty years — platinum-selling singles, sold-out shows stretching from Austin to Amsterdam, a breakup and a resurrection nobody planned for — into fuel for something even brighter. On “Open Eyes, Broken Heart,” their newest release, those instincts steer the band into new and rewarding territory — and some of the most courageous songwriting of their career.
The backstory by now is the stuff of Americana legend. Uncle Lucius spent years on the road — five vans worn out, four albums recorded, Norway to North Carolina — before calling it quits, shaking hands as friends and going their separate ways. Then “Keep the Wolves Away” landed on Yellowstone, the most-watched cable series on television. Nobody told them — the company had no obligation to. Frontman Kevin Galloway found out when people started sending him congratulatory texts after having seen the end of Season 1, Episode 4. Jon Grossman recalls the moment clearly. He and Galloway were still working together on Kevin’s solo material when word started spreading. They contacted a lawyer. Money changed hands. The scattered band members — who hadn’t seen much of each other, hadn’t eaten at steakhouses — reconvened over dinner at the Three Forks Steakhouse in Austin. Drummer Josh Greco raised a glass and smiled: “We should have broken up years ago.”
That reunion could have been a victory lap. Instead, Uncle Lucius treated it as a reset — logging thousands of miles across America, Europe and beyond, rebuilding their chemistry the old-school way: onstage, night after night, song after song. Galloway says the record is a direct result of the band gelling on stage.
And what a record it is — one that came together the way the best ones do. Kevin walked into the sessions with the whole album already mapped: concept, narrative, song order, the works. Grossman calls the idea solid from the start, noting that guitarist Doug Strahan and other band members’ influence on arrangements runs deeper here than on “Like It’s the Last One Left.” You can hear it in the album’s diversity of texture and tone.
The recording followed a tradition with deep roots — Bon Iver going to a cabin, Led Zeppelin tracking “When the Levee Breaks” in a stairwell. Uncle Lucius rented a house in Wimberley, Texas — beautiful, right on the Blanco River, vaulted ceilings, reportedly near Paul Simon’s place. Their friend and engineer Chris Bell, who captured Live in ’25 at Gruene Hall, moved all his racks in.
Honesty is the album’s north star — and for a Texas band, Uncle Lucius aren’t afraid to speak it. What sets them apart is how they do it: not with a pointed finger, but with a mirror. They don’t preach. They don’t lecture. They ask their listeners not to get to know Uncle Lucius, but to get to know themselves.
The album begins with angst — the jaw-clenched, riff-heavy fury of “The Bruxist.” Grossman’s fills dart between synths and wild sounds while Greco keeps it tight with John Bonham-like mastery. The lyrics cut straight to the bone: Teeth like magnets, jaw full of screams, tongue in a vice to avoid being mean. Galloway is writing about the grinding, subconscious habits we form for survival that eventually become the chains that bind us. I do believe at this rate I may never roll away this stone. It’s harrowing and human all at once.
“Scraps and Pieces” follows with a hypnotic bass line from Drew Scherger and a uniquely rhythmic vocal melody. Buried in scraps and pieces, numbed by breaking news — in two lines Galloway captures the modern condition more precisely than most songwriters manage in an entire album. And from there the song transcends into a mind-numbing acid trip.
Then comes “As Above, So Down Below,” ethereal space-rock with a Pink Floyd quality to the background vocals. The lyric that hits hardest: “If we could remember ourselves and get out of our way, we could walk the pathless land.” Grossman shines here, his organ coming to life and taking the jam to another planet. The soulful background vocals that dominate the song’s closing section belong to Uncle Roy & Spice — familiar to listeners of “Like It’s the Last One Left,” where they appeared on “Holy Roller.”
“Say There Sunshine” offers the album’s most accessible moment — a sweet lament with harmonizing guitars carrying an Allman Brothers warmth. A palate cleanser before “Coming Down (Again)” arrives, reimagined from 2009’s “Pick Your Head Up” with an updated horn-heavy groove and words that feel even more prescient today: You bent a knee to the leaders when they came to your town… we know they’re deceivers, look out, it’s coming down. Bold words for any band. For a Texas band on a roots label, they’re extraordinary. And yet Galloway never loses his cool — he’s not reacting, he’s reporting.
Perhaps the album’s most powerful statement is “I, Too, Have Raged” — twelve years in the making. Since “Keep the Wolves Away” landed on Yellowstone, fans of the show have associated the song with the scene it accompanies: the revelation that “putting people on the train” means killing them, extralegally. People have approached Galloway assuming he shares that sentiment. This song is his response. Not a press release. Not a correction. A song. And characteristically, he begins not by distancing himself from the angry man in front of him, but by recognizing himself in him: “Strong arm man wearing pride on your sleeve, holding steel in your hand, feels like I’m looking in a mirror.”
The covers are revelatory. Robert Earl Keen’s “Mariano” — updated lyrics approved by Keen himself — is a dusty road ballad about an immigrant worker that feels both timeless and timely, landing somewhere between Marty Robbins and the Texas plains. Grossman’s accordion playing completes it.
Another highlight is “Shadows Laid Bare,” a quiet, searching song with a build reminiscent of Murder By Death that asks the question the whole record has been building toward: Is there enough good to go around? And then answers it, gently: Night will give way to sunrise, the shadows laid bare by sunshine. After everything that came before — the rage, the chains, the stones, the deceivers — this moment of the album is earned.
The album’s final word is “City of Dreams,” the Talking Heads cover reimagined with David Byrne’s blessing. Tracing America’s layered history from its first nations to its latest divisions, Galloway delivers the closing chorus with the same common-sense clarity that defines his own writing: “If we can live together, the dream it might come true.” For a band that spent this entire album asking hard questions without easy answers, it’s the perfect landing — not resolution, but possibility. Not a conclusion, but an open door.
“Open Eyes, Broken Heart” is not an album about resolution or escape. It’s an album about accepting chaos, finding grace within it, and moving forward anyway. Twenty years in, Uncle Lucius have open eyes and a broken heart — and somewhere underneath the concrete, the dream is still alive.
Highlights: “The Bruxist,” “As Above, So Down Below,” “Say There Sunshine,” “City of Dreams”
Musicians: Kevin Galloway (vocals, guitar), Mike Carpenter (guitar, vocals), Josh Greco (drums), Jon Grossman (keyboards, accordion, vocals), Doug Strahan (guitar), Drew Scherger (bass).
Enjoy some of our previous coverage here: REVIEW: Uncle Lucius: “Live in ’25