Gig review: Lord Huron, King Tut’s, Glasgow

Lord Huron have 14 hours to burn in Glasgow and they want to make the most of them. “We’re trying to get as jakey as we can,” said their softly spoken frontman Ben Schneider, with the slight hesitancy of a man who hasn’t quite mastered the local lingo.

Lord Huron

King Tut’s, Glasgow

Star rating: * * “I don’t even know what that means – is it dirty?’

Judging by their music and demeanour, this Michigan outfit are definitely not the mad-for-it types, making an easy, unflustered countrified indie sound which fits comfortably into the current commercial vogue for anything in the Mumford & Sons ballpark. They could even be the country Coldplay, were it not that, despite the occasional deployment of the ubiquitous “oh-oh-oh” wordless hookline, they appear unconcerned about whipping up any festival-friendly anthemic fervour.

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In practice, their softly-softly approach often manifested itself as underpowered, sleepy meandering, where drummer Mark Barry would lock into a gentle, shuffling groove, while Schneider adopted a mildly angsty moan. Occasionally, he woke up to attack a standing snare, firing off rimshots to embellish a couple of percussive Afrobeat-inflected numbers.

A brief solo spot from Schneider provided an engaging indication of the bare-bones, plaintive folk root of his songwriting and succeeded in hushing the room before he was rejoined by his band who layered on ambient drone, followed by the suggestion of rock’n’roll twang and a skiffly rhythm to the closing Time To Run. After which, it was time to hit the cocoa hard.

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