© Special to the Democrat Memphis band Lucero with opener Jade Jackson play at 8 p.m. Saturday at Fifth and Thomas.

Like a bouquet of hot pink azaleas on a cold gray headstone, the music of Lucero burns brightest in the dark places.

Celebrate the band’s 21st birthday with their signature boilermaker of Memphis-oaked country-soul and a punk chaser at a show set for 8 p.m. Saturday at Fifth and Thomas. Jade Jackson will open with the blues-smoked jangle-pop that landed her on Rolling Stone’s list of “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know.”

Lucero’s ninth studio album, “Among the Ghosts,” smolders with Southern Gothic intensity. Its cover image of a half-drowned clapboard church sets the twisted-sinister tone. This represents a new high-water mark for the band, plumbing antediluvian emotional depths and emerging to a rainbow in cloudy skies.

“It’s my favorite album we’ve ever done,” said frontman Ben Nichols in a recent phone interview.

The stripped-down sound leaves room for reminiscence and revelation. Nichols’ songwriting has strengthened and matured since getting married in 2017. Nichols said of his wife and 2-year-old daughter, “All of a sudden, I had something to lose. It’s the happiest I’ve ever been, and the most scared. But pain and sorrow, joy and love — man, that’s the precious stuff.”

He admired the storycraft of Larry Brown, Tim O’Brien, and his younger brother, director Jeff Nichols. Spooky, sexy, Southern noir, every song on “Ghosts” creates a cinematic vignette. “To My Dearest Wife” evokes the homesick dread of a Civil War soldier on the eve of battle. Pangs of longing and devotion envelop “Loving,” originally written for Jeff’s film of the same name.

Barnburner “Back to the Night” features an eerie spoken-word cameo by Michael Shannon. The actor also makes a menacing turn in the Nichols brothers’ short film for “Long Way Back Home.” But it wouldn’t be Lucero without rock ’n’ roll scorchers like “Everything Has Changed,” “Cover Me” and “For the Lonely Ones.”

Grammy-winning engineer and co-producer Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Drive-By Truckers) lent a laid-back air to the sessions at the historic Sam Phillips Recording Service. The band played live together in a room virtually unchanged since the ‘60s, recording in three-day sprints for nearly a year.

Lucero invoked the spirits, and Ross-Spang channeled them. On breaks from touring, the band discovered surprises in each mix. “We’re always open to the unexpected. That’s where the magic happens,” said Nichols. “Happy accidents become the gold you were mining for. Those serendipitous moments are so special.”

But experienced prospectors make their own luck. Singer-songwriter Nichols, guitarist Brian Venable, bassist John C. Stubblefield, drummer Roy Berry and keyboardist Rick Steff know how to find the richest nuggets. Lucero formed in 1998, but everyone became friends years earlier. Nichols explained, “The ‘90s Memphis music scene was awesome. Shows every night — that’s all we did! We just got the guys who weren’t in any other bands.”

After two decades of whistling past the graveyard to the nearest juke-joint, the group has forged a legacy of love, music and rockin’ good times. Lucero has finally found their place in this world “Among the Ghosts.”

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Memphis band Lucero rocks 'Among the Ghosts' at Fifth and Thomas