Album Review: Lord Huron, ‘Strange Trails’

On the new ‘Strange Trails,’ Lord Huron picks up right where ‘Lonesome Dreams’ left off… with impossibly catchy melodies, emphatically fanciful lyrics, and intriguingly hazy production. Lord Huron has a very specific, radio-ready sound that emerges somewhere between the crisp acoustic guitars and Ben Schneider’s layered vocals, and which owes a solid debt to My Morning Jacket, Fleet Foxes, and Animal Collective.

As on that predecessor, the songs here find their singer traversing the land and brooding about love in the most cheerful way imaginable. Heck, even their titles betray that underlying theme — “Meet Me in the Woods,” “The Yawning Grave,” “Frozen Pines,” and “Way Out There.” To really drive it home on songs like “La Belle Fleur Sauvage,” “The World Ender,” and “Cursed,” chunky guitars chug like steam engines headed out of western towns in search of big, blue skies and wide open plains to help that same singer forget about the loveliest little gal either side of the Rio Grande.

To be sure, ‘Strange Trails’ is a pleasant and pleasing record, an easy, folk-rock listen teeming with potential singles and gleaming platitudes. And, maybe, that’s enough. It was certainly enough for ‘Lonesome Dreams’ to catch on like wildfire. After all, not everyone has to be Neil Young or even Justin Vernon — indeed, not everyone can be Neil Young or Justin Vernon. Some people get to be Ben Schneider.

‘Strange Trails’ comes out April 7 and can be ordered HERE.