Over the last 12 years or so, Lanterns on the Lake have forged and honed a singular sound and gradually found a niche in the indie pop landscape. Versions of Us is their fifth album, and it doesn’t sound all that different from the others: a rich, atmospheric milieu marked by dramatic chords, clattering drums, and blasts of distorted guitar tempered with shoegaze-inspired washes, Hazel Wilde’s vulnerable vocals, and cozy, folky sensibilities informed by the band’s Northern English heritage. They are signed to the Bella Union record label, which former Cocteau Twins member Simon Raymonde runs, and it would not be easy to imagine a more perfect fit. It’s hard to explain fully what went on there. There were points where some of us considered whether we could and should continue at all with making the record and pursuing a life in music. We made this huge decision to scrap the whole thing and start again. We’d already blown our small budget and the deadline to submit the album was just a couple of months away.” It sounds everything but an album that was recorded while the band continued day jobs and produced in the guitarist Paul Gregory’s bedroom. The addition of Radiohead’s Philip Selway on drums gives it gravitas and a new approach. It is also testament to their label Bella Union. Not many bands get five albums these days but their belief in the band is completely unwavering.

Credits | Where Soldiers Come from | POV | PBS". PBS. 11 January 2011. Archived from the original on 4 August 2013 . Retrieved 1 June 2014. Much of this evening’s power is driven by Lanterns on the Lake playing with two drummers. Philip Selway is joined here by Tom Hardy, though his tenure with the band may be short-lived if he continues to suggest that singer and songwriter Hazel Wilde’s appearance resembles that of an evil headmistress “in that dress.” For her part, Wilde is at her most relaxed, most playful, and has surely never sounded in better voice. Real Life This song is about living your imaginary fully-realised life. It’s about the promise you make to yourself and others of something better rather than living in the moment and accepting who and where you are. It’s essentially one for the daydreamers. Reynolds, Aidan (4 October 2013). "Album Review: Lanterns on the Lake – Until the Colours Run / Releases / Releases // Drowned In Sound". Drownedinsound.com. Archived from the original on 18 December 2013 . Retrieved 1 February 2016.The nine songs ofVersions Of Usare existential meditations examining life’s possibilities; facing the hand we’ve been dealt and the question of whether we can change our individual and collective destinies.Singer and songwriter Hazel Wilde has no doubt that motherhood fundamentally shifted her perspective.“Writing songs requires a certain level of self-indulgence, and songwriters can be prone to dwelling on themselves,” she says.“Motherhood made me aware of having a different stake in the world. I’ve got to believe that there’s a better way and an alternative future to the one we’ve been hurtling towards. I’ve also got to believe that I could be better as a person, too.” Opener and lead single “The Likes of Us” documents the state of things (“Oblivion howls for these gutted streets / Boarded shops cower in defeat”) but sublimates observations into a mantra of resolve (“I won’t let this spark die in me”). It heralds Versions of Us as the band’s most cohesive and concise record yet, with its pervading sense of empowerment encapsulated in Wilde’s startling vocal performances. Her voice soars with previously unheard force on an album austere in its beauty, with its shifting sands of searing guitar, fluttering vintage synths and swarming melodic lines, topped with glistening strings from Angela Chan. Following the release of their Mercury Music Prize-nominated fourth album Spook the Herdin February 2020, and as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold, Lanterns on the Lake started work on their next record. Approaching the final stages of its recording they then realised that “things didn’t feel right”so bravely chose to scrap what was a year’s worth of sessions for the new album. To compound matters, drummer Ol Ketteringhamand one of Lanterns on the Lake’s founding members decided it was time for him to move on from the group. Who are we, and what is our potential? Are we living up to the best possible version of ourselves, and are we making the right moves in this “game called” life? Breathtakingly beautiful, unapologetic, and uncompromising, Versions of Us inspires and confronts, enchants and demands. Opener and lead single ‘The Likes of Us’ documents the state of things (“Oblivion howls for these gutted streets / Boarded shops cower in defeat”) but sublimates observations into a mantra of resolve (“I won’t let this spark die in me”). It heralds Versions of Usas the band’s most cohesive and concise record yet, with its pervading sense of empowerment encapsulated in Wilde’s startling vocal performances. Her voice soars with previously unheard force on an album austere in its beauty, with its shifting sands of searing guitar, fluttering vintage synths and swarming melodic lines, topped with glistening strings from Angela Chan.

Archived copy". www.bellaunion.com. Archived from the original on 2 October 2011 . Retrieved 17 January 2022. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link) For the band – comprised of Hazel Wilde, Paul Gregory, Bob Allan, and Angela Chan – those years have been a time of tremendous self-reflection, personal growth, and change. For starters, their longtime drummer and pianist Oliver Ketteringham announced his departure in 2022, leaving the group he helped found fifteen years earlier. Radiohead’s Philip Selway ended up replacing him on drums and percussion, which is a whole story in its own right. Released June 2, 2023 via Bella Union, Versions of Us is a phenomenal eruption of sweltering, soaring sound and stunning lyricism. Lanterns on the Lake’s fifth studio album arrives nearly three and a half years after the release of 2020’s Mercury Prize-nominated fourth LP Spook the Herd.Versions Of Us is a majestic career peak record from a band that has evolved constantly over more than a decade. It’s their fifth and most focused sounding album despite the difficulties in making it. The production belies being done in a bedroom, at points the instrumentation sounds widescreen and big budget without losing sight of where it’s come from. Lyrically, it’s raw, honest and painfully open at parts, a catharsis being used to make sense of what’s gone on and how to recover from it.