It’s unclear which is meant to be providing the majestic quality to Ben Schneider’s new album: a titled nomenclature, or the echoed harmonies from Fleet Foxes. Both have considerable precedence, firstly as band names continue to be as far removed from front-person/founder or solo artist as possible, generating perhaps a mystique, and here royally so; and secondly the Fleet Foxes were themselves bedevilled by comparisons with CSN&Y harmonising when they first appeared on the scene, not that Ben Schneider is a newcomer. Those just mentioned vocal comparisons were apt but not in reality that direct, yet the acoustic phenomenon of the LH/FF echoing is in danger of being verisimilitude gone reverb mad – and I take my extended metaphor from the epistemological argument that if so many reflected sounds assail a listener they are unable to distinguish between them, the proper definition for this is reverberation. Not echo. Reverb man.
Not knowing Fleet Foxes material that completely you could have
played me Lord Huron’s Lonesome Dreams
as if it were the former’s latest release and I would have readily accepted the
devious ruse. Is that criticism or compliment? I think it has to be the latter
because it is an enjoyable harmonious sound that at times soars but always
gently pleases. Perhaps more significantly is if in continuing the tease-analogy
you initially told me you were playing Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s latest
I wouldn’t have been so aurally gullible [apart from all the other pragmatic
reasons]. The significance is that Fleet Foxes have fashioned their own
distinctive sound and it is having the same influence in its time as did the
former band, and Lord Huron are in this new musical lineage. That’s progress
reverberating on and on. And I like it well enough for it to continue, and continue.......
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