This current COVID crisis is kind of the perfect time to release a bonus EP. Everyone’s sitting at home, looking for something new to listen to. Artists are sitting at home as well, waiting for the vaccine like the rest of us. They’ve got extra material, but we might have forgotten about them, so here’s a nice reminder and something more for your ears. U.K.’s Lanterns On the Lake have put out a nice, but tragic, bonus The Realist EP.
The beautiful orchestral span of “The Realist” carries one along from the start, for a record of windswept sadness. This is very much a December release, all cold on the empty moors like with “Romans”, or almost the frozen plains of the Old West with “Understudy”. There is also a strings-led “Model City” version of “Baddies”, originally from this year’s Spook the Herd (QRO review), and the washing atmospherics of closer “Model City”.
An add-on to Spook, yet even more spooky, The Realist leans into the sorrow behind the haunt. While we wait through this bitter winter, listen to the soundtrack for any bitter winter.
