Labels: Close to Home Records
Review by: MH
I’m always keen to hear new Lake Michigan songs and this latest release gives me that with the added chance to check out The Bank Trail for the first time. They are a good match for Lake Michigan being sparse and acoustic and the first song is good but then “Wildcard” turns up the sadness in the vocals, the slow guitar picking and the lyrics – it’s quite a gem. There is also a Nirvana cover – “Pennyroyal Tea”. This time there are some additional keys and vocals but it remains sparse and similarly downbeat whilst bringing a haunting feel to the song. It steers clear of the more desperate sounding vocals in the original version. Lake Michigan also serve up two new tracks and a cover. The new ones are both slow and atmospheric particularly the aptly named second track, “Mid”, which features some hugely understated and barely audible vocals alongside Chris Marks’ trademark lo-fi fingerpicked guitar. The last song is a Desire cover. I’m not familiar with the original but the sound here fits in well with the rest of Lake Michigan’s output. This is a cool split. The Bank Trail are definitely worth looking up if you like Lake Michigan and they have a few other tracks on their Bandcamp page. I hear it’s cold and snowing back home right now – this is ideal for some warmth on those cold, wintry late nights.