Lau - Midnight and Closedown (2019)

The band's 12-year recording career is resplendent with unexpected collaborations, accolades and innovative ideas. The sound of Lau in 2019 is perhaps closer to late period Beatles than to the traditional tunes and ballads of their 2007 debut Lightweights and Gentlemen. And yet the new album's closing track 'Riad' marks a full circle, stripping the lineup back to bare acoustic instruments. Midnight and Closedown is Lau's first new music since 2015's The Bell That Never Rang (***** The Guardian; The Herald's Album of The Year). Producer John Parish, widely celebrated for his recordings and collaborations with P.J Harvey, Eels, Sparklehorse, This Is The Kit, Aldous Harding, Rokia Traore, M. Ward, Giant Sand and many more, has captured the essence of Lau's songwriting: tender, bewitching and mournful, uplifting, experimental and political. These are new sounds still rooted in the traditional music that brought together the UK's three finest folk artists.