Lanterns on the Lake’s second album Until the Colours Run is borne of loss, turmoil and doubt on every level: Adam and Brendan Sykes left the UK quintet following their 2011 debut Gracious Tide, Take Me Home, the remaining members were scrambling to finish the record with almost no financial resources. Singer Hazel Wilde has cited the grim economic outlook of her homeland as a main lyrical influence. And so, there you have it*—*Until the Colours Run certainly doesn’t lack for external drama, serving as both a make-or-break album and a reintroduction.
Marquee indie rock acts like Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire and probably the National are bands who work outside typical power trio structures while their lyrical concerns trace concentric circles of worry, from personal to societal to political to spiritual. And it’s populist for an ability to establish a relatable foothold lyrically and leave it up to the listener whether they want it to serve as direct commentary or grand allegory. This is progress for Lanterns on the Lake, who generated similar comparisons on Gracious Tide based on Paul Gregory’s string-laden arrangements and production. Until the Colours Run is warmer and more organic than its predecessor, though still squarely within indie rock’s “baroque” settings, nearly every component given a pleasingly faded luster: silvery guitar figures that twinkle, glisten and decay, echoing drums that sound both intimidating and fragile, a sobering layer of reverb over Wilde’s vocals. Whether it’s the all-out, crescendoing assaults of “Elodie” or the one-take piano ballad “Green & Gold*", Until the Colours Run* always bears the weight of its struggles, expressing even its joy in antiquated and Americanized imagery of unemployment lines and buffalos; as indicated by the record’s key line of “we’ll drink and sing on the breadline," happiness rarely exists on its own terms, but rather as a counter to exceedingly difficult circumstances.
It’s not to the discredit of LotL that Until the Colours Run lacks unfettered happiness or guileless pop pleasure. More problematic is that it lacks release of any kind, cathartic or otherwise. Thematically, LotL express faded glory and missed opportunities while exhibiting potential with so many rich sounds and potent concepts. Unfortunately, they often lack the things that separate the aforementioned A-listers from the scores of similarly-minded bands, namely, propulsion, hooks and personal detail. Opener “Elodie” whips up a dramatic setting with the same skyward drum rolls and pinging guitars that allowed Explosions in the Sky to corner the market on “cinematic” and “sweeping,” but the melody and rhythm of the verse never find their footing. It’s indicative of LotL’s most disappointing habit going forward, of introducing an arresting melody or guitar figure that ultimately gets lost in muddled compositions or overbearing production tricks. Based on its title and its position as the penultimate track, you know “Another Tale From Another English Town” is meant as the final pep talk, and “We’ve been sold a thousand lies/we just wanted the quiet life/but they won’t stop until they see us in the ground” certainly sounds like a rallying cry, albeit one that’s universal because it bears no sense of the troubles specific to Wilde or her bandmates.
Unintentionally, “Another Tale” does become emblematic of Until the Colours Run’s unmet ambitions, which ends up recalling the sound of the National less than one of their most oft-quoted lyrics: “let’s not try and figure out everything at once.” It’s sound advice for LotL, not just in regards to their overzealously embellished music, but also as a rejoinder to the record's emotional tenor, a jittery, post-caffeine comedown where you’ve recognized the tasks at hand for the day and they seem just a little too daunting to even begin tackling. If you’re in that mindframe, Until the Colours Run works just fine for an all-purpose wallow, but it’s simply too ponderous to be the galvanizing social commentary to which it aspires.
