Lanterns on the Lake

Already released at home in the UK in October of last year, Lanterns on the Lake's second studio album, Until the Colours Run, finds the Newcastle-upon-Tyne indie rock outfit exploring an even more expansive sonic palette. Anchored by the cinematic piano compositions of chief-songwriter Hazel Wilde — who seems to have learned vocals from the Bilinda Butcher School for Barely Audible Singing — and the ambient excursions of lead guitarist Paul Gregory, rarely has an album about England's eroding economy and cultural upheaval sounded so exquisitely triumphant. Starting with the Slowdive-by-way-of-Yann Tiersen operatic opener "Elodie" and sophomore album standout "The Buffalo Days," dive-bombing guitars and symphonic climaxes quickly give way to Wilde's plaintive take on piano-based slowcore (the shoegaze-evoking "The Ghost That Sleeps In Me," mid-set breather "Green and Gold"). Although never quite retaining the same amount of urgency as the opening half of the LP, "You Soon Learn" does a pretty good job tiding listeners over with its Glastonbury-ready guitar lines and interweaving riffs until the band rounds out the final moments of the record with "Our Cool Decay," channelling every ounce of the album's socio-political undertones as Wilde ambivalently sings about the disintegration of literal and figurative support systems that surround her and her country.