After over a decade of creating moving and emotionally charged pieces of Americana that blur the lines between genre-bending and traditional, Lord Huron is reaching a new peak. Under the watchful eye of band leader Ben Schneider, the band has released critically acclaimed LPs that produced platinum hits, been tapped to write and produce movie soundtracks, and, most recently, can now call themselves an arena act with shows at the Kia Forum and Madison Square Garden booked on their extensive 2025 tour schedule. While part of the tour celebrates Lord Huron’s past, with their breakthrough LP, 2015’s Strange Trails, marking its 10th anniversary, the other part is a declaration of a new era for the band.
Lord Huron’s fifth album The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, comes at an interesting time for the band. With praise and success raining down upon the Americana four-piece, we’ve witnessed plenty of artists taste a fraction of what Lord Huron has achieved, and we’ve watched them crumble under the pressure. It is almost a guarantee that a Lord Huron project is going to be soft, poetic, twangy, and warm. While the band has done the heavy lifting of crafting a sound they can call their own, the real challenge comes when it’s time to reimagine and reshape into something new, or fall victim to repetition. With more eyes than ever on the band, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 can launch Lord Huron to new heights, and the band rose to the occasion, bringing lofty visions with them.
Rather than attempt to reimagine themselves as a new band, Lord Huron took the nuances that made them such a vital organ in modern Americana and stretched them to deeper levels of vulnerability, grace, and wisdom. Across the twelve songs that make up The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, the band explores their pop side on the bright pop-leaning “Watch Me Go,” shows off their range with the Kristen Stewart-assisted, eerie surf-rock single “Who Laughs Last,” and breathes new life into the longing-filled acoustic ballads like on “The Comedian.” There are traces of classic Huron in all of these moments, but only enough to remind long-term fans of the band that they’ll never forget their roots, while simultaneously pushing their sound into a more freeing direction.
With all its unpredictable mood shifts, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 has one consistency that nothing can take away from Lord Huron: their songwriting is some of the most beautifully poetic in Americana. Throughout the warping arrangements and surprise features, the band proves to have a cacophony of heartwrenching ballads that add a splash of color to grey emotions like heartbreak and loneliness. Songs like the single “Bag of Bones,” “It All Comes Back To Me,” and “Fire Eternal” with Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino are the moments where day-one Lord Huron fans get to see the style they connected with initially flourish into sweeping highlights from an undeniable LP that lives up to the stadium-sized expectations Lord Huron as set for themselves.
