The L.A. based, Michigan-inspired indie folk four- piece band Lord Huron have transferred the campfire smoke from Gitche Gumee out to California on Strange Trails, their fifth album.
The group is part of a new breed of traditionalists like Brandi Carlile, who are taking rural American music and expanding it sonically to connect to listeners looking for new sounds.
There’s a quality of familiarity in the structures that appeals to ears used to pop, rock and country with an added mix of classic harmonies and ringing guitars.
Strange Trails has a warmth all its own though, and Lord Huron’s sound is based in straight ahead harmony vocals and reverb-laden melodic songs that summon earthy images.
Lord Huron has inherited an indie rock sensibility that proved to be an ideal breeding ground for folk rock and Americana sounds. Songs like The World Ender, La Belle Fleur Sauvage and Meet Me in the Woods are songs of the trail: they carry the keening melody that pushes musical explorers onward.
Dead Man’s Hand is a rustic study of relaxed vocalization and Hurricane is a waltz in a time warp, a compressed burst of harmonized energy.
Just so the mood doesn’t become too bright, the group unearths a dark vein of melancholy on The Yawning Grave – soundtrack music for gold rush era saloons.
In spite of song titles like Cursed, a hazy sense of well being rules this recording and it’s easy to catch on to the pull of the evocative sounds.
– Dean Gordon-Smith is a Vernon-based musician who reviews new music releases weekly in The Morning Star.
