Lanterns on the Lake

About

Mercury Music Prize-nominated band Lanterns On The Lake's sound remains vast, but this set of songs now feel urgent and intimate.

Hailing from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and releasing music on the Bella Union records, Lanterns on the Lake combine dreamy, melancholic Indie rock with beautiful layers of texture and celestial melodies that thread around intricate instrumentation.

With a sound that sends a flare to British Sea Power and King Creosote, Lanterns on the Lake encapsulates an unplaceable 1990s-quality in Hazel Wilde's compelling vocals. On latest album Spook the Herd, Wilde's voice and preoccupations rise to the fore like never before. In tandem, the band break new ground on a set of songs that are unavoidably direct and crucial. Diving headlong in to the existential crisis of our times, Wilde proves herself a songwriter possessed of a rare talent for finding the personal contours to contemporary issues, fully inhabiting them to make them real.

The nine songs turn the microscope to issues including our hopelessly polarized politics, social media, addiction, grief and the climate crisis. Yet Wilde's romantic streak is still the record's beating heart and shines a hopeful beam of light into darkness.