![]() The music portion of South By Southwest runs from March 12-March 17. What’s a guy gotta do to get a key change? But Houck’s main problem lies with the rhythm section lay a few James Brown records on that drummer and call me in the morning. Workmanlike guitars did their level best to elevate the proceedings, but the utter lack of anything in the way of syncopation or musical surprise was sort of astonishing. The group offered four songs, all ballads (even when the bass was hitting it hard) and all rather maudlin-sounding, too, though it can be quite hard to distinguish the lyrics of founder/frontman Matthew Houck (he sings in the tight-mouthed Dylan vein, or in the reticent phrasings of Tallest Man on Earth’s Kristian Matsson). ![]() ![]() Shortly after the Huron show, I hit the HypeMachine showcase to catch Phosphorescent, a band that has fared better among indie tastemakers. The band commandeers various virtues of the Shins and the Foxes, yes, but with an undeniable voice of its own-and a very welcoming one indeed. Drummer Mark Barry fixes a tambourine above his hi-hat (a smart technique and one I’m surprised more percussionists don’t use) and tends to lean in when he’s layering beats within beats on the toms with a pair of mallets. On slow-jams “Ghost on the Shore” and “In the Wind,” the band stretched its legs without ever noodling, the guitars urging each other up the fretboard and twining into a wail as plaintive and memorable as Schneider’s own stratospheric voice. ![]() Fellow axe men Tom Renaud and Karl Kerfoot are capable of the hard-grind sonic breakdown one expects from Wilco, but they also create upper-register textures so rich that there’s no need for organ-the band doesn’t have one. But Schneider’s band is so good that his occasionally inscrutable lyrics about the splendors of nature, etc., come off as a conscious counterpoint to the very electric propulsion of the music. Yes, the Foxy touches are undeniable: slow, incremental guitar melodies that sound like Aaron Copland lost in the forest, and soaring, reverbed vocal harmonies that belong in a cathedral. Singer: Lord Huron Title: The Ghost on the Shore. That, at any rate, was the reassuring sense I got at last night’s show. The Ghost on the Shore Lyrics Lord Huron. What’s so annoying about the hyper-referential haters is that they rarely consider the possibility that perhaps frontman/founder Ben Schneider is drawing not on Robin Pecknold or Jim James, but on a plenty worthy muse of his own. Pitchfork damned Lonesome Dreams, the group’s 2012 debut, with whisperingly faint praise, invoking the Foxes (and My Morning Jacket) wherever possible and rating the record a glum 5.6/10. Also, I have now basically seen Fleet Foxes #twobirds #SXSW.” What I didn’t realize then was just how bluntly the comparison had been used to bludgeon the band into spinoff status. “World Ender” described intoxicating revenge.I owe Lord Huron a partial apology: During the band’s grandiose, enveloping set at the Austin City Limits Moody Theater yesterday I dropped a lazy tweet: “Entrancing performance from Lord Huron at ACL Theater. “Yawning Grave” began with a deceptively simple title suggesting a creepy image and followed through with considerable dread. Intro F C Dm C F C Dm Am F C Im just a man but I know that Im damned Dm C All the dead seem to know where I am F C Till it began on the night of my birth Dm Am Well be done in a turn of the earth F C Lie where I land let my bones turn to sand Dm C I was born on the lake and I dont want to leave F C Every eye on the coast. “The Ghost On The Shore” taps into songs such as “Long Black Veil” to describe the unhappy dead. Schneider is at least as skillful with the dark side, obviously influenced by timeless tales of woe. Keep up with what's going down in entertainment in central Ohio: Sign up for our Life in the 614 newsletter “La Belle Fleur Sauvage” confessed at the end, “I'd give it all to love that girl,” but not before admitting before that, “What you’re looking for won’t be found easily.” His obsession in “She Lit A Fire” never makes an appearance, other than in the protagonist’s mind. So the “light” came in measured increments, qualified moments. Like the murder ballads, folk songs, and novels that inspire him, Schneider can’t help being drawn to tragedy, loss, and disappointment. His six piece band delivered both dark and light, though the darkness clearly dominated the songs’ lyrics and narrative. The Ghost On the Shore Im just a man but I know that Im damned All the dead seem to know where I am Till it began on the night of my birth Will be done. Near the beginning of Lord Huron’s nearly-two hour set inside Express Live! on Wednesday night, lead singer and songwriter Ben Schneider promised an emotional odyssey: “There will be ups and downs, laughter and tears,” he said.
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