Music Review | Southerly Sisterly Rock Mastery

By now, the tired and bogus notion that women can’t rock as mightily as their male counterparts is quite thoroughly dead and buried. Bands like the sizzling Southern rock sister act Larkin Poe are busy hammering extra nails to that fallacy’s coffin. That became abundantly clear from the first powerhouse and rough housing song of the band’s Arlington Theatre show last Sunday.

From the first downbeat of the opening song “Nowhere Fast,” from their brand-spanking-new album Bloom, the band’s saucy Southern energy seized the room on impact, and continued its principle of audience engagement, from rockers to ballads, detouring into an unplugged bluegrassy interlude and back. Up front and centering, donning variations on an ornamental denim theme, lead singer and guitarist Rebecca Lovell belted out the song with her usual fervor and focus, while her sister Megan Lovell showed why she is a respected member of the slide guitar/lap steel/dobro world.

The bedrock-ing rhythm section and keyboardist/guitarist completed the picture of a smart but muscular and earthy new Southern rock aesthetic — at once rootsy and tasty to the core, with thoughtful lyrics in the mix. Needless to say, the Larkin Poe show — opened boldly by the impressive blues-rock-South-in-the-mouth act Parker Millsap —  was the rocking-est entry of the current UCSB Arts & Lectures season, although also with a natural folk-rock-Southern alliance with the recent A&L-at-the-Arlington visitor Jason Isbell.

Officially, Larkin Poe has embarked on a tour to promote Bloom, record number eight in a discography mostly released on their own Tricki-Woo label, and their first new release in three years. As Rebecca told the nearly full Arlington house, tongue halfway in cheek, “We’re used to ratty little clubs. This is quite a step up for us. Very elegant.” She added that “music is uniquely special, which allows you to channel life through the power of songwriting.”

Among those special new songs is “If God Is a Woman” (“Hell hath no fury / You better watch what you do / I’m gonna pray for you”). Rebecca also spoke about the sense of renewal linked to her  pending life as a mother. She observed that, under much reflection, “being a rock-and-roll singer and a mother can go hand-in-hand.”

Much of Sunday’s set list, though, was culled from their previous album Blood Harmony, winner of the 2024 Grammy for contemporary blues album, including “Summertime Sunset,” “Kick the Blues,” and “Southern Comfort.” Fittingly, “Comfort” kicked off a short acoustic set-let at mid-point in the show, with band members gathered around a single mic, vintage country-radio style. Megan sweetly “wo-manned” a dobro on the tunes “God Moves on the Water,” “Mad as a Hatter” and, winkingly, a gender-goosing take on John Denver’s classic “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”

John Denver land and the acoustic mode quickly gave way to swampy Southern feistiness again with the popular Blood Harmony tune, “Deep Stays Down.” After capping off the show with the supercharged, boogie-timing stomper “Bold Cutters & the Family Name” (“You can take me out of the fight, but you can’t take the fight out of me”), the Lovell sisters eased into the tender 12/8 ballad turf of “Bloom Again,” as an encore. The song, which builds to a whomping and slide guitar-coated climactic coda, proved to be an ideal harmony-laced grace note to end on, as it does in the finale position on the new album.

Sunday night at the Arlington had plenty of Saturday-night vim and spit and vigor going for it, with tenderness on the side. Yes, the Lovells are among the best women for the Southern rocking job.