The second album from Lake Jons, The Coast, has warmth running through its core; a luminescent and radiating glow that somehow manages to feel both fresh and nostalgic. Like a dusky Nordic landscape, the coldness of the exterior hides a welcoming and nurturing element.
Lake Jons write straight up pop songs – uncomplicated, unfussy and undeniably catchy. It is in the production of these tracks that they develop a sense of identity that stands them apart from much of the indie fodder that they will likely be lumped in with. They sound like Bon Iver would if he actually hadn’t believed his own hype. There are pop hooks and melodies all over this album that refuse to leave your head some considerable time after the songs have finished.
‘Up All Night’ kicks things off with an almost hymn-like tone to Jooel Jons’s vocals. It’s a slow burner of a track that builds and swells, seemingly forever moving towards a crescendo at glacial pace. The sweeping synth lines and reverb soaked vocals at the beginning of the track lend an eerie, ethereal aspect to it. Here is a band in no dire need to get to the punch for the streaming generation’s ever diminishing attention span. The clattering, skittish drums that open second track ‘Tom’ elevate the mood from pensive to pulsating with an almost two-step flow to the beats (almost!). Lake Jons illustrate their ability to confidently meld genres and musical tones that really shouldn’t sit well together, aural alloys for the listener’s pleasure. The contemporaneous feel of the beats is juxtaposed with an almost MOR 70s piano line which is overly jaunty and wholesome. It really shouldn’t work anywhere near as well as it does.
One of the standout tracks on The Coast is ‘I Don’t Care’, which came out a couple of months back as a single. It’s an absolute cracker, mixing the pop-psych sensibilities of early MGMT and the less overblown elements of Tame Impala with a courage in the production that neither could muster. There is a fragility to the song which is highlighted in the mix which deliberately falters here and there, as though the soul of the notes is trying to rip through the surface and reveal itself to the listener. It’s an almost perfect pop song for the current gloom of these dystopian times but it is also self-aware, the layers being uncovered as various musical parts drop out and are folded over to no longer obscure another beast within. If 2019 is the year of liars and populist charlatans then Lake Jons are going some way to counteract that by exposing the multifaceted beauty beneath.
The Coast constantly switches style and form throughout its twelve songs which is either a sign of contrivance or confidence – much will depend on the mood and patience of the listener on this matter. From the swaggering rock guitar riff that opens ‘Bad Breathe’, to the indie folk chords of ‘Simone’ and the 80s synth lines of ‘Do You Recall?’ the listener is confronted with a range of influences being toyed with, kicked around, mutated and morphed as Lake Jons see fit.
Despite the band’s influences seeping through the songs’ pores, there remains a singular drive to the album despite its tendency to careen one way and another. There is a tangential element to the sounds captured, with notes drifting in and out of focus as they please. In terms of reference points, Jon Brion’s score for the superlative Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is brought to mind, the haze of consciousness hindered by the critical faculties’ discomfort of a hypnagogic state.