LUCA

Sick of Love
FUNZALO

The problem with reviewing a local album is that it's hard to eschew the local factor: Are you giving this band more of a chance because they're local? Would you not even give it a second listen were they from, say, Anywhere, Calif.? I'm all for supporting local music--sometimes, though, there's a tendency to give local bands more of a chance than one would with bands composed of people one does not know.

With Luca's Sick of Love, though, this ain't a problem: Local or not, this is a damn good album.

From pop-rockers like "Find Me There" and "Melody" to jazz grooves like "Loosin' Ground" and "Maybe Move On, Baby," Sick of Love is heavy on the energy, only slowing things down for "Evening Blue" and "This Tiny Room." Things just gel on Sick of Love: Slide guitar and vocal harmonies on "Maybe Move On, Baby" turn the song from just another blues number into something deliciously hypnotic, and the energy of Luca's live performance is captured on "Rosalie." "This Tiny Room," with its recurring chorus-laden guitar melody, is the kind of song you'd expect to hear in the background of a TV show, and I mean this in a good way--it's that well put together. Save the title track, which has something a little too ordinary and stale (Luca's strength is making standard rock 'n' roll sound fresh), Sick of Love is all well put together.

Annie Holub

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Music/Content?oid=oid:86122 - Tucson Weekly

Nick Luca’s big beat pop is served well by his power trio format. His guitar playing steers the rhythm section into no frills bar rock, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t above reaching for the mystic. Surprising appearances by accordion, vibes, mandolin—always in subtle ways, just urging the song along-make tracks like “This Tiny Room�, “Find Me There� and “If Love� Richer than expected. Rocking tracks like the title song and “Dominoes Fall� are just straight, gut-bucket rock that can fill a room and line at the bar with anyone. Sick of Love is a record that grows on you, a pleasant rocking and keys driven outing that seems slight on the surface, but has a pretty big river, and heart, running beneath it. Repeated listens open up avenues into the richness of the sound.

http://www.musicemissions.com/artists/albums/index.php?artist_id=3451&album_id=4372 - Music Emissions

Nick Luca's first two records were heavily influenced by the fertile Wavelab Studio scene in Tucson, where he has worked as sound engineer with such desert-noirists as Calexico, Giant Sand, and Friends of Dean Martinez. But Luca sheds that skin with Sick of Love, emerging with a diverse record of '80s power pop, hook-happy country rock, and indie laments -- music that sounds vintage, but never nostalgic.

The opening title song is a blast of Graham Parker-meets-Rockpile pop, featuring jagged guitars, frenetic rhythms, and Luca's once-thin voice spitting out lines of romantic frustration. "Find Me There" and "Melody" are cut from similar pop molds, while "Rosalie" and "Dominos Fall" recall the punk twang of Too Far to Care-era Old 97s, both cuts powered by runaway locomotive beats, Luca's harmonica, and Jon Rauhouse's pedal steel. Elsewhere you can hear strains of Tom Verlaine ("Losin' Ground"), John Doe ("Love Me Too"), and even Teenage Fanclub ("This Tiny Room"). Members of Calexico and Giant Sand's Howe Gelb lend support, but this time they're guests, not sources of inspiration. Love may be giving Luca the business, but it's also helped him record a gem of a rock disc, one of this year's true surprises.

http://www.clevescene.com/2006-08-23/music/luca/ - Cleveland Scene