Long Island heavy rockers John Wilkes Booth will mark their first decade together next year. 10 years. The band -- who, if you're wondering, took on what I think even they'd tell you (perhaps while smirking) is a lousy name in order to capture something universally hated -- made their full-length debut in 2008 with Sic Semper Tyrannis (review here) following a split with 12 Eyes and my former band, Maegashira, and a 2006 self-titled EP, and five years later, they answer their long-player with the eight-track/34-minute sophomore outing, Useless Lucy, which both beefs up the production overall and delves into darker noise rock terrain on cuts like "From the North" and "Masturbation Song" while tapping various veins of '90s alt rock in "Six One" and the later "Ladder and Vacuum," at least before the latter switches to its crunching hook, Tool-style bleaker prog riffing from guitarist Jason Beickert winding out a resonant chorus that consumes much of the three-minute song's second half, vocalist Kerry Merkle recounting an everyman tale of woe overtop, somewhat ironically (and again, perhaps smirkingly) following the parental love-letter "Soaking the Perimeter." The Booth have always had something of a progressive drive, musically and vocally, and Merkle does well in changing his approach here from gutting out the start-stop chorus in "Masturbation Song" and the verses in "13 Years" to more cleanly riding the funk-rock push of "Ladder and Vacuum," bassist Harry Vrooman and drummer Christian Horstmann stepping up the bounce there where in the midsection of closer "Family Crest" they smoothly hold together a post-bridge jam as Beickert embellishes an exploratory-sounding lead.