Apologies for the long absence, dear readers. It has been a busy week. So busy that I couldn’t even squeeze in a music review (or much of anything else). This means this next record got a lot listens. Good thing I like it. It is almost like this music collection was hand curated to my own tastes…
Disc 1567 is…. Lonesome Dreams
Artist: Lord Huron
Year of Release: 2012
What’s up with the Cover? A cowboy desert scene. This cover captures how vast the sky must seem when you are in the middle of a desert. Unfortunately, with this kind of “diffuse” art you can’t make out many features of the cowboy. Let’s call him ‘Earl’. The horse, of course, has no name.
How I Came To Know It: If memory serves my friend Casey played some Lord Huron songs at a gathering of our music club one night. If it was someone else, my apologies. In any event, I liked what I heard which led me to buy both this album and 2015’s “Strange Tales” which dates about when I heard about both records.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Lord Huron albums. This one and “Strange Tales” are in a dead heat for best of the bunch, and I didn’t want to pick until I’ve had a chance to review them both. However, since I don’t have a choice to delay (or more exactly won’t give myself a choice) I am going to put this album in at #2. I was going to put it #1 but after seeing a live performance of the band on KEXP, I changed my mind. More on that later.
Ratings: 4 stars
“Lonesome Dreams” has a haunting lilt to it that draws you in like a lucid dream. Each song flows gently into the next so seamlessly that before you know it the album has restarted for the fifth or sixth time without you even noticing. Like I said, I got a lot of listens in on this one.
Despite all those listens I was never restless or eager to move on to something else, which may be the best things that can be said about a record. It has re-listenability, and while I didn’t necessarily get something new on every iteration, I enjoyed them all.
Stylistically, Lord Huron doesn’t sound like any other band I can think of. They operate a space between folk and rock, but within a soup of diffuse production. I usually like a lot of space in my production decisions, but “Lonesome Dreams” showed me you can do it differently and still make it work.
The arrangements lend themselves to the dreamy production. Most of the songs have some form of a light gallop guitar strum, often with some other instrument (strings, tambourine, etc.) filling in the gaps. Lead singer (and songwriter) Ben Schneider’s vocals sit back in the mix with a lot of harmony in the background (either looping or another band member, not sure which) which makes it feel symphonic. This “chorus” sound is on virtually every single track which holds the record together. It is a lot of the same sound, and the songs tend to cycle within themselves as well, but strangely it never gets tiresome.
My favourite song on the record is “Ghost on the Shore,” in part because of how that sonic approach works so well for telling a ghost story. The other part is this some of Schneider’s best work lyrically. Here’s the second verse:
“Under the waves and
the earth of an age
Lie a thousand old
northerner’s graves
Deep in the night,
when the moon’s glowing bright
They come rising up
into the light.
I’ll die if I must,
let my bones turn to dust
I’m the lord of the
lake, and I don’t want to leave it
All who sail off the
coast evermore
Will remember the
tale of the ghost on the shore.
That is some creepy brilliance, packing shipwrecks, and dirt and bones up with the breathless excitement at wondering “was that just a trick of the moonlight, or did we see a ghost?” For the song at least, it’s pretty clear it’s the latter.
Connectivity plays a big part in the record’s themes. The ghost is connected to the landscape, and elsewhere we see characters chase after lost loves (“She Lit a Fire”), while others stand steadfast in the strength of the love of brothers facing adversity together (“Brother”).
“Ends of the Earth” is the most famous of those “let’s stand together” tunes. While it has not benefited from being overplayed in a million TV commercials over the years, but it is still a great song. Immeasurably better when not shilling for a product.
My only beef ended up being with that thing I had earlier forgiven, the production. That lush atmospheric sound had me under its spell until I heard a few of these songs played live. When I realized how shortchanged I’d been of the dynamics and tone of Schneider’s voice, which is a amazing when it isn’t so layered over, I became somewhat irked. For the first time I began to notice all the excess. The steel drums in “The Man Who Lives Forever” was particularly off-putting.
However, it was not so off-putting to interfere with the joy I get from “Lonesome Dreams.” It is a quality album, and the joy I experienced never flagged across multiple listens this week.
Best tracks: Ends of the Earth, Time To Run, The Ghost on the Earth, The Man Who Lives Forever, Brother
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