Lord Huron – “Drops in the Lake” (Single Review)

When 13 Reasons Why aired, Lord Huron’s song “The Night We Met” took the world by storm catapulting the then quiet success of the band to a new lens of stardom with the aforementioned song reaching 1.8 billion streams on Spotify alone. “The Night We Met”, released as a single in 2015 and included in their 2015 album “Strange Trails” didn’t reach its full height until 2018 when 13 Reasons Why released, garnering the band an ample following of now 26 million monthly listeners.

Their follow-up project in the wake of their newfound spotlight, “Long Lost”, released in 2021, took the band’s Americana sound to new heights with an introspective and nostalgic sound recorded at the famous Whispering Pines. Performed in front of Tubbs Tarbell, host of the Alive from Whispering Pines television show, the band recorded the entirety of “Long Lost” with Tubbs’ himself stating that there was an “eerily familiar” sound to every track, pulling a sense of nostalgia to the band’s sound without any specific placement.

This vague sense of familiarity and comfort to the songs is apparent from start to finish. Still, it is perhaps best exemplified in their song “Drops In the Lake”, a poetic track about an ending relationship that leaves the singer lost in memories of the past, associating their now lonely days as nothing but small drops to the lake of memories of their love.

With a beautiful string arrangement, a slow and deliberate crescendo with a twang of country strings plucked on the guitar, Ben Schneier (Lead Singer) accompanies the notes with a beautiful, controlled, deliberate vocal performance, equal parts raw and technically impressive. With the poetic, heart-wrenching lyrics tied with the longing, slowly paced instrumentation, the track elicits a sense of yearning and warmth tied with an odd feeling of liberation thanks to the powerful performance of Ben.

While many tracks within the album echo these feelings and moments, “Drops in the Lake” subtly highlights all of these effortlessly and ties together the key themes and principles of the album. While their sound in “Long Lost” is iridescent of their previous works, their new sound of nostalgic Americana sets new heights and standards for the band. 

Score/Excellent: Lord Huron has truly captured the essence of nostalgia and melancholy throughout their entire album but especially in their song Drops in the Lake. With its Americana twang, soulful/blues vocals, and lyrics of longing and yearning, Lord Huron offers a deliberately paced and thoughtful reflection of love lost. 

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