Vide Noir

Inspired by long drives across sprawling L.A., Lord Huron’s dreamy third album is music for soul-searching. It begins, like many journeys do, with a broken heart. "She went west to chase her dreams/She took my money, but she didn’t take me,” confesses frontman Ben Schneider, before setting off to get her back. Guided by an “Emerald Star”, his quest leads him to fortune tellers (“Ancient Names”) and the edge of the earth (“Back From the Edge”) in a sepia-toned daze of heartland harmonies, fuzzy guitars and psychedelic soundscapes by Flaming Lips production mastermind Dave Fridmann. But the magic of <i>Vide Noir</i> is its sense of story, which wisely suggests that a happy ending depends on what you’re searching for.