Lanterns On The Lake

Brudenell Social Club 26/11/11

Live music in 2011 has been dominated by American artists. For me, the excitement and innovation seems to come almost exclusively from the States. For some time there has been a developing movement of songwriters who have embraced the issues of the time and churned the legacy of Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and Bob Dylan into a contemporary melting pot that we call Americana. It is characteristically confessional, often involving just a bearded man and a guitar.

Equally as wide and meaningless as a label is the so-called British ‘nu-folk’ movement comprising bands who draw on the legacies of John Martyn and Sandy Denny and who eschew the American wide-screen for the black and white portable  - more DH Lawrence than William Faulkner, implied bohemianism as opposed to American Gothic. It gets complicated when an artist’s reading  material sits mid-Atlantic so I won’t go THERE just yet.

With Lanterns On The Lake we are automatically in uncertain territory. Six VERY young people from Newcastle who have recently released a highly ambitious album .... for which the adjective ‘cinematic’ was made for – and on the Bella Union label – itself an industry kite mark of quality. They sound like their name. 

They have a ghostly quality, the songs starting imperceptibly with just a flurry of instruments and vocals but eventually giving way to a growing swell of sound that shines light on the earlier fog. Four of the six play drums at some stage and a mournful violin underpins their very Englishness. Paul Gregory on guitar is a compelling sight, stamping his left foot furiously but generating soaring other-worldly sounds, often with the help of a violin bow which by the end is almost shredded.

For all the subtlety, the Lanterns’ drum sound is immense, at times almost tribal in its intensity. The colours and shapes that this contrast creates on songs such as .... and ... point to a potential that could see them become a very big name indeed.

So, almost at the death, when I’d nearly given up hope, a British band to give the Americans a run for their money.