‘This is a very inspired band’ said a man in his late 50s, talking to the woman next to him, as both were waiting for Lord Huron to come on stage at Amoeba. He was looking at the cover of the vinyl he was holding, admiring the beautiful artwork and he could not stop raving about the band he had just discovered thanks to KCRW. ‘Do you think there will be a signing? I’m gonna framed it’, he added giving a million of meticulous details about the framing process, ‘I have a whole collection at home, I even have one from Nico’… this guy was too much to be true, a signed vinyl collector and an avid fan of Lord Huron apparently.
But Lord Huron is the type of band that can inspire such passion from true music lovers, their music is rich and soothing, with a large part left for dream or mystery, reminiscent of several beloved bands of the past and present, subtly mixing exotic percussion with guitar solos. You may think Fleet Foxes, or My Morning Jacket, some band names often mentioned in reviews, but there is another dimension with Lord Huron, a dimension for adventure. They have managed, through very beautiful artwork and artsy videos, to create a very personal universe of make-believe adventurous tales of an imaginary west influenced by exotic textures.
Having listened numerous times to their two previous EPs, I already knew it was inspiring music, the 50-something guy was right, most of the songs are a call for the wild, a call for departure with the crazy idea to never coming back. Even the new songs’ titles put together – ‘Time to Run’, ‘Ends of the Earth’ – seem to mean just that.
During their opulent set at Amoeba, there was passion, there were vocal harmonies eager to get lost in large open spaces of layered folk guitars, there were intense rhythms and guitar solos producing from time to time these pulsating and vibrant African tones. But there was also something rustic, colored of sepia tones about all this, but in no way outdated, and there was joy, bitterness and enough unpredictability to keep me interested at every minute, discovering the new songs off their new album ‘Lonesome Dreams’, which has already been out for more than a month now.
‘Time to Run’, one of my favorites of the album, was this galloping-turning-epic moment, with its fake western undertone (just watch the video the band made for it) and its quiet prayer-to-the-wind lulls suspended in time. I wished all the songs would have recreated this magic, but ‘She lit a fire’ and in particular the title song, ‘Lonesome Dreams’ lacked a little bit of this fire that characterizes their music so much.
Ben Schneider and his large band – Mark Barry on percussion and vocals, Miguel Briseno on bass and percussion, Brett Farkas on guitar and vocals and Tom Renaud on guitar and vocals – seemed to be impressed by the large crowd that had packed the rows at Amoeba. They only played one song from their previous release, the mysterious ‘The Stranger’, but they executed it so much harder than usual, that they showed some real rocking capacities, after all this is a band which has covered a Bruce Springsteen’s song in the past.
Lord Huron transcends genres and periods, the music is both nostalgic and playful with this rare timeless quality of something running after the glory of nature. And it doesn't really matter if we don't know why they are still running.
Setlist
Ends of the Earth
The Man Who Lives Forever
I Will be Back One Day
She Lit a Fire
The Stranger
Time to Run
Lonesome Dreams