_{Text: Florian Baudouin}

As you know, we’re always up to discover new music. So naturally, we didn’t hesitate when we had the opportunity to listen to Funeral Lakes. Let’s set the scene: the band is a duo consisting of Chris Hemer and Sam Mishos based in Kingston, a small town in Ontario, Canada, at the meeting point of the St. Lawrence and Cataraqui rivers, on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. With all this watery background, the band’s name makes sense.

Redeemer follows on from last year’s ‘Golden Season’ EP and their self-titled debut album, released in 2019. The new album explores the notions of faith and justice and the tension between them with a sense of melancholy. The EP opens with “Solstice”, the band’s latest single, and what strikes you immediately is the complete absence of build-up or crescendo. We are immediately taken into the heart of the duo’s universe and it will be the case for all the other tracks of this EP. Let’s talk about the universe, precisely. Throughout the four tracks that make up this EP, we are immersed from head to toe in an emotional indie rock, full of reverb and synths. You can’t help but think of Arcade Fire or The Velvet Underground. The EP closes with “There’s Got To Be Something Better Soon”, which starts off softer than the previous tracks and concludes this opus with a guitar full of comforting melancholy, accompanied by a few layers of synths.

The recipe is efficient and we can’t wait to discover the duo’s next LP. In the meantime, we can only advise you to wait for a rainy autumn evening, to light the fireplace and to browse through a Ray Bradbury novel while listening to this EP, it should work.