
Photo Set: Lord Huron @ The Showbox
Words and Images by Gregory Heller
It feels rare these days for a band to put out a concept album that can stand on the merits of the music without any knowledge of the concept. Lord Huron is a such a band. And Strange Trails is such an album.
I first discovered the LA-based group in the run-up to SXSW 2013 where I saw them at ACL Live Moody Theater (a fantastic venue, the likes of which we do not have here in Seattle.) On the tour for their debut album Lonesome Dreams that followed, Lord Huron swung through Seattle and played the Showbox where a rapt crowd seemed to hang on every lyric.
On April 18, Lord Huron returned to the stage at the Showbox to support their latest album, and concept, Strange Trails. With a sound that is at times reminiscent of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in the mid 1990s, or even Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, frontman Ben Schneider took the sold-out house on a journey through his soundtrack for a film that will likely never be made.