There’s never a wrong time to see an artist you appreciate, but sometimes it takes a while to find the right time. Such was the case for Lera Lynn, a Nashville based singer-songwriter that I think I first saw as an opener for another band perhaps in 2013 or 2014. I went all-in on her debut album and subsequent EP, joined her mailing list, was rewarded with more of her work on True Detective Season 2, downloaded songs that she occasionally made available to her listers, and was aware of her travels including numerous stops in Atlanta that just didn’t work out for me.
Better late than never.
Lynn created her career with a certain sound. It feels like the soundtrack to a life, real or fictional, and it makes sense that she fit the neo-noir vibe of True Detective. It’s easy to imagine her as a siren in any dimly lit room, as on the show, or highlighted with a spotlight as she appeared this night at Vinyl with her band mates in shadow.
Lynn engages the audience through the evening, openly questioning where she finds herself at this point in her life, her talents well recognized but with an implied recognition of an audience not rising to the hoped for scale. She twice touched on this, in introductions to “Beige,” a new song she’s particularly pleased with, and “Out to Sea.” It’s welcome and honest, and having recently turned 42, maybe it carries some weight. Better though, life itself is inspiration, and as a songwriter should, she captures her musings pointedly in “Laundry,” perhaps the standout lyrical track in Comic Book Cowboy, her new album that she is touring:
It’s cute when the young girls
Sing all sad and agonize
Don’t you wanna hear
My midlife existential strife?
It’s the saddest kind
But I’m still sexy
In the right light
In your clean laundry
On the right night
From an audience perspective, this tension is hard to reconcile, particularly her doubts suggested in the last verse. It’s obvious that Lynn loves what she does, creating music, touring with her guitarist / husband / producer Todd Lombardo, and captivating an audience while commanding the stage. Whether reflecting on recording On Your Own unassisted during Covid, writing a song about falling in love at first sight with “the one” while passing by him on a bus, or in comically frank terms speaking to what she wouldn’t do to be featured on True Detective, Lynn shares a winning charm and an easy sense of being in the moment.
That intimacy felt especially fitting at Vinyl, a venue that pulls the audience close to the stage, and, as evidenced this night, shines most brightly as a “listening room” when the audience is tuned to the artist rather than with each other. It’s no wonder that some of her work became the tonal identity for a drama, as her songs can easily slip into the listener’s personal soundtrack of a moment lived.
Her 2025 tour concluded the following night, and Lynn expanded the setlist a bit, adding two songs from her newest release, Comic Book Cowboy as well as two more from her 2016 classic, Resistor.
Standouts included “The Avenues,” a thematic kin to Lucinda Williams “Side of the Road,” an energetic “Scratch + Hiss,” a great cover of TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me” (which she recorded with The Civil Wars’ John Paul White), “Dark Horse” which is a broadening from her established noir sensibilities, and “What You Done” which landed in authority. Kudos to Lombardo’s splendid slide guitar and a band that supports her music beautifully.
Was there a disappointment? The absence of “Lately” and “For the Last Time,” for certain, but I can only reflect on the opportunities I missed for previous tours.
Setlist:
Encore:
