luego

Campus band (sort of) Luego returns to campus Saturday night to release their new EP, I Know, I Know, at the Duke Coffeehouse before kicking off a regional tour.

The band-led by quirky, blonde-locked singer and guitarist Patrick Phelan, Trinity '07-is back with their second EP in less than a year. Where some of the band's older songs were grandiose and crisp, this crop is subdued, gently rollicking and softer around the edges.

Since last spring, the band has parted ways with guitarist and senior Sonny Byrd, who has himself garnered attention as frontman for mtvU-award-winners Stella by Starlight. The void he left on the front line has been filled by Dan Carlin's cello.

The earlier EP, Cobblestones, received a slightly too-harsh review in this publication from a critic who will remain nameless. Some of the weaknesses voiced then still remain. Phelan's voice, for example, is powerfully evocative, but is also solidly in the tradition of idiosyncratic American folk singers and will be an acquired taste for many listeners.

The Luego on I Know is still very much an Americana band, but the more-prominent strings brew a mix of quiet turmoil and anguish under the lyrics; the comparison is reductive, but think Wilco's "Jesus, Etc." (to be sure, Jeff Tweedy ranks highly in Luego's pantheon of influences). Gone are the sweeping vistas of the last disc, replaced by introspective thoughtfulness. Also diminished are the jammier passages; I Know is a taut set of five songs, clocking in at 20:41.

There's no sing-a-long like "Cobblestones" that will implant itself in the brain on I Know, but it's also more even and consistent than Cobblestones, and several tracks-the falsetto-crooned "Get Under You" in particular-stand out. And Luego still makes great music for a sunny afternoon in Durham.

-David Graham

Luego hosts a CD release party for I Know, I Know Saturday at the Duke Coffeehouse with special guests Warm in the Wake. Tickets are $7; the show is at 9:30 p.m.