Lord Huron's fourth album is a haunting time-capsule of striking, moody ballads and catchy, cleverly arranged mid-tempo gems that, together, feel like lost songs written ages ago that have only now been uncovered. So, once I understand what the band was doing, I let go of my preconceptions and expectations and simply opened myself to what Long Lost is. Some of my all-time favorite songs took time to grow on me. It's also unfair to expect a song to immediately hit you. But it's unfair to judge something based on your expectations rather than what it's intended to be.
And I was also surprised that the songs didn't instantaneously grab me in the way that the Fleet Foxes' new album Shore did. I was expecting them to zig where they zagged, and go more into the trippy, Prog realm of multi-part songs rather than lean into their Ghost Town side. I should admit up front that I wasn't a fan of the three songs they released prior to the album's release. While the darker Vide Noir-with its weirder, even heavy-rock groove was a step too far for some fans, Long Lost goes in the opposite direction-a mixture of offbeat and old-timey ballads from a post-Appalachian, but yet pre-Country era songs like "Mine Forever," "Meet Me in the City," and "I Lied" are distinctly old-fashioned and charmingly timeless, with "Not Dead Yet" tapping into rockabilly (which Lord Huron flirted with on Strange Trails).īut there's much more here than meets the eye. Yet, despite the success they've earned, lead singer and songwriter Ben Schneider has never been content to stay in one place-the mark of the true artist-and has seen to it that Lord Huron continues stretching and experimenting (as they have since the band's early EPs), while keeping true to their ethereal aesthetic. The love child of classic-era Moody Blues and Chris Isaak, Lord Huron is-without hyperbole-one of the best bands of the era, as evidenced by the cosmic pastoralism of Lonesome Dreams, the Gothic Folk of Strange Trails, and off-kilter, fun-house rise of Vide Noir.
0 kommentar(er)
