Anthemic and delicate, indie dreamers Lanterns on the Lake set out to calm the ripples of a world in turmoil on fourth album Spook the Herd. They're not wrong when they sing "we don't need a wall we need a bigger boat" and, having crept south from their Newcastle home to a studio in Yorkshire, the band knuckle down to build a vessel to keep us afloat even as the sea churns and the waves crash around them.
That said, Spook the Herd isn't necessarily an album for all occasions – its unrelenting earnestness could strike a cynic on a bad day as pomposity itself. But that very same cynic, unwinding with a world-weary view and reflective mood, will likely find the beauty in the music and connect with the vulnerability of Hazel Wilde's haunting vocals. "They'll get you in the end", she sings on the magnetic 'Baddies', inadvertently capturing the essence of her band while also leading one of the best songs on the album; in a departure from the LOTL formula which is reliably applied elsewhere on the album, this track bursts rather than eases into life and in less than three minutes of ebb and flow touches more emotions than many bands manage in an hour.
Indeed, at the height of their power Lanterns on the Lake are close to peerless – powerful and tender, their widescreen sound can and does sweep you off your feet, whether with the joyful 'This Is Not a Drill' or the beguiling 'Before They Excavate', a touching paean to living to leave something behind. Preserving enough variety and range to avoid veering to the middle of the road, Spook the Herd drifts from rich instrumentation with urgent echoes of Arcade Fire ('Blue Screen Beams') to delicate piano-rich tracks recalling the likes of Daughter, always stitched together with Wilde's show-stealing vocals.
The threat of pretentiousness looms large over parts of the album and, if we're being honest, Lanterns on the Lake may well take themselves a bit too seriously in places. But after all, these are uncertain times and we need some self-belief, so give them the benefit of the doubt and bask in the glow of an album made to set sail to a better place.
Words - Joe Ponting
Buy Spook The Herd
Spook The Herd tracklist:
1. When It All Comes True
2. Baddies
3. Every Atom
4. Blue Screen Beams
5. Before They Excavate
6. Swimming Lessons
7. Secrets & Medicine
8. This Is Not A Drill
9. A Fitting End