Album Review: The Lonely Wild – Chasing White Light
2 min read
It’s usually common knowledge that the albums that deal with death are reserved in a particular folder in your music library for the days where you’d rather stay in bed with the curtains drawn, eating copious amounts of deep fried-anything and leaving yourself to wallow in self-pity. Yet L.A rockers The Lonely Wild have made an album that, although about death, is smooth and gentle.
It’s a feat that is rarely pulled off, especially on the notoriously difficult sophomore album, but Chasing White Light has managed to balance this juxtaposition perfectly by creating a vast, succinct and timeless sound. Lyrically it’s tinged with loss and pain but its delivery is in an upbeat, classic Americana-rock style that makes listening a lightening and unique experience.
Since forming in 2010, the band, currently assisting of Andrew Carroll, Ryan Ross, Andrew Schneider, Jessi Williams and Dave Farina have released an EP and an acclaimed debut LP and although they have lost some members, their rich, soft/folk rock sound has evolved even past bands who have been playing for decades. The production on Chasing White Light gives you the catchy guitar riffs of America and the swelling strings of Mumford & Sons, yet the band have chosen to distance themselves from the overly produced malarkey by delivering a sound that’s raw but still sleek and the results are both inclusive and warm.
The album crosses all genres and emotional prototypes that would normally leave the average listener a bit perplexed and drained but it somehow manages to really work here. Scar is a nod to classic 70s soft rock, a breezy-classic Americana tune that was written for the road; Funeral’s delicate and haunting piano lingers in your memory long after its climax and the ragged, rock’n’roll edge of Into Their Mouths gets you up and moving again.
Chasing White Light rarely slips up and its ability to toss between genres creates an enticing sound that – although it isn’t entirely new – will undoubtedly manage to move this act from support to headline in no time.
