Album Review: Lord Huron - Strange Trails

How do folk rock bands feel now that Mumford & Sons have left their banjos behind? Did they enjoy the ride or were they bitter from the start?

Strange Trails is the second album from this Californian indie folk group. The quartet pull together tightly on fast tunes like Until The Night Turns, as the instrumentation flies ahead at a thousand miles per hour. Lead singer Ben Schneider can yelp with a Springsteen-inspired abandon, but unfortunately his songwriting on the slower songs can’t sustain this sense of engagement. Much of the album feels disappointingly kitsch.