Album Review: Lord Huron - 'Long Lost'
Long Lost, the fourth album from indie folkists Lord Huron, is a warm, sprawling record that showcases a newfound breadth and depth to the Los Angeles outfit’s repertoire.
The album’s first full song, “Mine Forever”, is a signal of intent. It’s driven by a strident but purposeful guitar line that wouldn’t be out of place in a Johnny Cash song. “Mine Forever” is followed by “Love Me Like You Used To”, another sumptuous slice of Americana that harkens back to band leader Ben Schneider’s Appalachian roots.
It’s not remotely patronising to see this as a maturation of the band’s sound. The sentimentalism of their early work has, musically at least, evolved into something a little more nuanced. The Beat poet hedonism is still prevalent on songs like the rousing, energetic “Not Dead Yet” but, on this outing, that outlook contrasts smartly with DeLillo-esque cynicism and doubt elsewhere. This is Americana, after all.
The middle of the album is something of a return to type, evident in “Drops In The Lake” and “Twenty Long Years”, although the backing vocals of the former are a stirring facsimile of the style of the late, great Ennio Morricone. Long-time fans will no doubt revel in their soaring, anthemic choruses.
The final third is the album’s strongest section and, arguably, the best material Lord Huron have released to date. The 1:35 run-time of “At Sea”, awash with lilting lap steel guitars and pattering drums, is a brief foray into Hawaiian-tinged psychedelia. It’s a mysterious and hypnotic track that leaves an indelible impression on your mind and ears. When I first listened back to it, I couldn’t quite believe how short it was.
The album’s pinnacle is “I Lied”, a song with humble beginnings that builds to a stunning duet, once more punctuated by intoxicating, reverb-drenched guitar and operatic backing vocals that will make you dream of dusty coats, train stations and Claudia Cardinale. “I Lied”, like the rest of the album, is melancholic without being overly sentimental. That’s no easy task and the success is a credit to Lord Huron, as it's an area they've stumbled over in the past. This is appropriate, as it happens, for an album that is a conscious exorcism of skeletons in the closet.
Words by Dylan Wilby