When you think of the Chemikal Underground label, you probably think ‘Scottish’. Next you think ‘post rock’, and probably ‘melancholia’. But their recent release from Portland sextet Loch Lomond is somewhat of a gear change.
Crafting gorgeously intricate swells of instrumentation that encompass everything from a flute solo, to a string section, to tinges of Americana, and the finest chamber folk. Their much anticipated second full length Little Me Will Start A Storm was released last month. The album was mixed by Adam Selzer (who has recorded all of M Ward’s records), Tucker Martine (Laura Veirs, The Decemberists), Kevin Robinson (of Viva Voce), and Jeff Stuart Saltzman. Lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Ritchie Young threads each melody with a highpitched kind of wonder not heard on my speakers since Crosby Stills and Nash and laces it with a aching, a indefinable longing for better times.
Highlights include the excellent lead single “Elephants & Little Girls“, that’s graceful pirouetting twinkles and guitar picks flower into a glorious full on sing-along. It’s almost Abbey Road era Beatles in it’s pearless life affirming communality, vividly cooing about a particularly enjoyable trip abroad. “Blood Bank meanwhile has almost Spector-ish qualities as it’s arpeggio’d usher in a onomatiopoiac lyrical couplets that sways back and forth before bellowing out with the experience of weather beaten of the ages. Away from the epic scale of these two defining moments, the “Earth has Moved Again” is tenderly drawn hopeful refrains and shrugging arrangements that shifts like the ground beneath your feet. Loch Lomond are a name to conjure with….
Loch Lomond “Elephants and Little Girls” from Decade ii on Vimeo.
