Edwards, David (15 September 2011). "Album Review: Lanterns on the Lake – Gracious Tide, Take Me Home / Releases / Releases // Drowned In Sound". Drownedinsound.com. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011 . Retrieved 1 February 2016. Lanterns on the Lake leave us in a moment of quiet, intimate reflection to ponder the truth of our reality. Lanterns On The Lake to support Low in London – All Tomorrow's Parties". Atpfestival.com. 30 January 2012 . Retrieved 1 February 2016.

It sounds everything but an album that was recorded while the band continued day jobs and produced in the guitarist Paul Gregory’s bedroom. The addition of Radiohead’s Philip Selway on drums gives it gravitas and a new approach. It is also testament to their label Bella Union. Not many bands get five albums these days but their belief in the band is completely unwavering. It’s fair to say that with all these changes, Lanterns changed the destiny of their fifth record. It’s an irony that’s not lost on Wilde and Gregory, given that a huge theme of the record is destiny and fate, and whether we can change our path in life. These were all lyrics that existed before the initial album was scrapped – they weren’t changed to reflect the turmoil the band had been through. Reynolds, Aidan (4 October 2013). "Album Review: Lanterns on the Lake – Until the Colours Run / Releases / Releases // Drowned In Sound". Drownedinsound.com. Archived from the original on 18 December 2013 . Retrieved 1 February 2016. Real Life This song is about living your imaginary fully-realised life. It’s about the promise you make to yourself and others of something better rather than living in the moment and accepting who and where you are. It’s essentially one for the daydreamers. The band played a host of music festivals including End of the Road Festival, Glastonbury Festival, [3] SXSW, and Bestival.Put another way, you don’t scrap an entire budget’s worth of recorded material and start over unless you really believe in your material’s potential. To Lanterns on the Lake’s credit, the version they’ve release into the world is phenomenal, intricate, and utterly immersive. Given some of its themes, a biting irony is found in an entire previous version of the record being discarded. Mental health struggles and personal problems in the band had a big impact on how the initial version took shape. “Despite trying everything we could to make it work we reached the point where we just had to stop” Wilde explains. Drummer Ol Ketteringham parted ways with the band, something Wilde says was“heartbreakingly difficult as we were and still are extremely close”. The band scrapped nearly a year’s worth of work, regressing to song demos with just Wilde performing with a single instrument as they began again with Radiohead’s Philip Selway joining the album sessions on drums. The Saboteur is equally inwardly looking – the line “I’m the saboteur of a future me” is a revelatory moment of self-reflection, countered by the positivity flowing from Real Life earlier that “I’m going to turn this whole thing round, like you wouldn’t believe” as if Hazel is convincing herself that she will go through with this and it will work. It was during this break that Wilde began writing many of the songs that would go on to make up Spook the Herd. The band developed the songs over the course of a year before recording at Distant City studios in Yorkshire. This was the first time the group had gone into a studio to record. Wilde has commented that "We are a pretty insular band in how we work, and trusting other people enough to allow them to get involved is not always easy for us."The album was produced by the band and mixed by the band's guitarist Paul Gregory. [24] Hazel Wilde also became a mother during this time, a life change she says has fundamentally shifted her perspective and without a doubt impacted the album’s lyrical content.

But despite this turmoil the remaining band members all agreed to carry on. First, they enlisted the help of Radiohead’s drummer Philip Selway. And having then approached the album’s original songs from an entirely different perspective were able to record them again in the space of just a few weeks. The definitive iteration of Versions of Uswas finally released at the beginning of June. The nine songs of Versions Of Us are existential meditations examining life’s possibilities; facing the hand we’ve been dealt and the question of whether we can change our individual and collective destinies. Singer and songwriter Hazel Wilde has no doubt that motherhood fundamentally shifted her perspective. “Writing songs requires a certain level of self-indulgence, and songwriters can be prone to dwelling on themselves,” she says. “Motherhood made me aware of having a different stake in the world. I’ve got to believe that there’s a better way and an alternative future to the one we’ve been hurtling towards. I’ve also got to believe that I could be better as a person, too.” Following touring throughout 2016 the band took a break. In an interview Wilde commented "I don’t think we ever said it would be the absolute end.. (But) I don’t think people would have blamed us for throwing in the towel at that point – we’d had a good run at it.. that would have been a good place to call it a day but we felt there was probably more we had to offer and further to go creatively, we just weren’t sure what or where that would be. And, if I’m honest, I was personally just a bit tired at that point." [23]BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001rcl0/uncanny. {{ cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= ( help) Lanterns On The Lake have announced news of an extensive UK tour in late 2023 to support the release including a set at Bearded Theory festival in Derbyshire in late May: Lanterns On The Lake have announced news of an extensive UK tour in late 2023 to support the release. The band will also be performing at the Bearded Theory festival in Derbyshire in late May: Thumb Of War hints at conspiracy theories and falling out with friends –“I see you scrolling through the century, banging on about some warning”– and trying to convince them of their madness. The music lays out the drama, strings and guitars creating a lush tension than runs through before building to a swirling crescendo.

The band have also announced an extensive UK tour in late 2023 which includes a performance at London’s Islington Assembly Hall.

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They self-released two EPs and a single before signing to the Bella Union record label in December 2010. [2] Like its predecessor, the Mercury nominated Spook The Herd, Versions Of Us is a record that almost didn’t get made. An album full of demos was scrapped, the band’s long-term drummer Oli Ketteringham departed mid-process (to be replaced by Radiohead’s Philip Selway) and the album’s lyrical content point to much personal upheaval in the lives of the album’s key protagonists. Where Spook The Herd became a triumphant against the odds, Versions Of Us might just be Lanterns On The Lake’s masterpiece. Upcoming Events". O2 Academy Brixton. Archived from the original on 6 January 2012 . Retrieved 1 February 2016. With qualities like this, aesthetic consistency is not a bad trait to have. If anything, Lanterns on the Lake seem to have fought to maintain it. The creation of Versions of Uswas fraught; an entire version of the album itself was recorded and scrapped. In the process, the group’s founding drummer left. What they’ve come up with, though, is a record that sounds especially suited to these fraught times while managing, after the impressive but sometimes unbearably bleak Spook the Herd (2020), to be their most accessible as well.