It’s an absolute doozy of an opener, though. But for the most part, if you listen to the first track, you know what sort of mood is going to be sustained for the rest of the album. And there are definitely moments when Lord Huron feels like its own thing, due to the ambiance they might use to bridge neighboring tracks, or the slight hints of electronic and worldbeat influence that creep into a few songs. A band’s musical style doesn’t always have to be thoroughly original for them to accomplish something transcendent with it, though. And sure, if I’d heard this back in 2012 when it was new, I might have thought that this band’s apparent hero worship was a bit on the nose – there are even some lyrical bits and snippets of vocal harmony that come dangerously close to imitating rather than being inspired by the Foxes, or My Morning Jacket, or probably some other bands riding the wave of that trend at the time. The joy I once felt when unraveling the twists and turns of Fleet Foxes‘ first two records came rushing back to me. All I knew was that I was getting a heavy sense of nostalgia for the “folk revival” period when lush acoustic instrumentation and impeccable vocal harmonies ruled the day in the world of indie rock. I truly wasn’t aware of any of this when I first heard those two magical songs, though. It offers me the (admittedly somewhat arrogant) hope that if I listen enough times, I might just be able to piece enough elements of the story together to make sense of the bigger picture. But I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for album-spanning narratives that don’t spell out all the plot elements and characters verbatim, but that hint at a greater story being woven together which only exists in the mind of the writer. Basing an album around an entirely fictional narrative that the audience is supposed to pretend is real with a wink an a nod is nothing new – we’ve had plenty of clever songwriters pitching their records as soundtracks to movie that never existed, and Garth Brooks even did the whole “Chris Gaines” thing that one time. The high-concept shenanigans weren’t really the thing that got me hooked on Lord Huron, though they certainly helped to seal the deal. I have failed to explain this concept succinctly, and you’re still confused.Thus, Lord Huron is the name of a fictional character, created by a fictional author, created by the band Lord Huron.The three central characters in the books (and thus the songs) are Lord Huron, his traveling companion Admiral Blaquefut, and his love interest Helena.The tracks on the album, while each corresponding to the title of a book in the series, do not tell the story in the same order as the imaginary books do.
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