Willie Nelson – Heroes Legacy 88691960482 (2012)
After a few albums of more old-fashioned, nostalgic country, Heroes has Willie Nelson back making music with a more contemporary feel. His son Lukas is prominently featured. Lukas plays guitar with a smooth sound, inflected with classic rock sensibilities. There are a lot of guest vocalists. This one is pleasant if unremarkable, though it might have been more than that without all the guest vocalists. Also, Lukas Nelson may be a decent guitarist, but a little more of Willie and Trigger would have been nice. In all, Willie is making more of an effort to seem relevant, though he also seems to be deferring a bit too much to his label (back on Columbia). This is nondescript contemporary country, and, as such, is only marginally interesting and too unambitious to make it stand out. Its best quality is that clearly a lot of effort went into recording, so this is polished up to a degree few albums can afford to do.