AAW: Strange Trails

(Originally posted 11 February 2022)

Lord Huron’s 2015 album Strange Trails seems the result of some strange choices. Not really, that was just a good opener. It’s mostly pretty standard sort of midwest emo stuff- a friend of mine recommended this album to me for this review, and it sounds like exactly what he listens to. It’s nice, sort of if Sufjan Stevens wasn’t so meek. Starkly different from last week’s review, the art for this cover is absolutely gorgeous. It looks like they’re going for a retro-vinyl look crossed with a camp vibe in the text, and the image- a man, presumably  Huron, looking out at a painted forest- complements the aesthetic nicely.

The album is pretty musically self-consistent (it all sounds the same). Largely atmospheric, you could just as easily crank this on a midnight drive in the middle of a rural nowhere or while doing homework (also at midnight). True to the “STEREO” label on the top of the cover, there is an electric guitarist for either ear and an acoustic one besides, and besides that the background is filled with different instruments and sounds in every song that all blend into one rhythmically complex backdrop to these poems and stories. Frozen Pines is maybe the exception, opening with some really intriguing percussive bells that fade into the background but not out of attention.

Notable songs: Fool for Love, which you’ve probably heard before, The Night We Met, which Spotify tells me you have more probably heard before, and The Yawning Grave, which has an absolutely captivating set of lyrics.

Usually in these I end up with some disdain for the first song since I sort of overdo it, but this week’s top pick is going to be Love Like Ghosts, mostly on lyrical grounds: It’s sappy, which you need every so often, and they’ve messed with the meter in a really interesting way to get every word to fit. 

Next week’s album TBD