The band was headlining the night at the Echo on Thursday night, and after having seeing them at Origami Vinyl last November, the idea of seeing them live again is actually what decided me to go out late on a weeknight.
With a few exotic instruments (maracas, various toms, bongos, and this weird futuristic harp with no strings), they opened large landscapes populated by tropical green jungles and what could be roaring lions, watery bodies soaked by the sun, and echoing distant vocals. It’s bright, glorious and so radiant that these tribal choruses make vibrate all your positive fibers at the same time.
The earthly sound binds so well with the storytelling of the songs whose organic lyrics are often ocean bound and bathing in the warmth of the sun, but at the same time walk on a darker side to celebrate revenge with ‘Son of a gun’ – When she finds him she will make him regret he was ever born – or wanderlust with ‘Into the sun’ – ‘I’m leaving today/If you see me again, it’ll be my skeleton, cause I won’t be back alive – or with ‘When will I see you again‘ – and the great line ‘If you won’t be returning don’t say goodbye’.
If Ben Schneider plays everything on his two EPs ‘Into the sun’ and ‘Mighty’ (7 songs altogether that you can listen to and buy here:
http://lordhuron.bandcamp.com/), he has now surrounded himself by 4 musicians who reproduced with great talent the atmospheric layered sonic universe of the EPs.Schneider, who said it was Lord Huron’s last show of the year, played most of the set with an acoustic guitar, jamming with the rest of the band several times, but performed the last song in front of a little drum set, for an exuberant rendition of ‘We went wild’. These Michigan born guys, now based in LA, have found the way to combine many little familiar elements from around the world, to build a fresh new original sound, a magic fusion that exalts a true glory and greatness live.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdVBQ5Qezc&fs=1&hl=en_US]