Released September 2007

From West Coast Performer: Jeffrey Luck Lucas is the downcast balladeer in A Touch of Evil’s lost cantina scene-an honorable stoic bearing witness to border town badness even as his own demons hatch. Between attempts to drink himself blind, Lucas manages to find solace in the stately, carefully crafted songs of Hell Then Divinean obsidian mix of traditional and alt-country, plus echoes of the Mexican folk music with which he was raised. Every tune is bathed in the steep shadow of romantic sorrow, and Lucas’ running themes of rain, spilled water, and unnatural thirst are great metaphors for the raw emotional material of the album. Lucas’ voice has an appealingly weathered quality, and it stands out nicely against a big night sky of instrumentation provided by friends and fellow troubadours. Chris Mulhauser’s (Aphrodesia) electric guitar is soulfully rippled, and engineer Desmond Shea (Tarnation, Court and Spark, Dieselhed) brings in everything from an Optigan to a dulcimer. Lucas’ cello and violin arrangements deserve special praise as a particularly beautiful presence in the music. Warm and ascendant, they’re the lantern we need to see our way clear of such cavernous regret, and they show unexpected but deep sympathy for Adam Anderson’s lap steel. Standout tracks too many to mention, just listen.   — Magnatune