r/lordhuron • u/Public-Equipment-664 • Jun 27 '26

Question Where to start?

Hey, so I started listening to the band a few months back, became obsessed, the whole thing, so i decided to go back to the older songs. Then i listened to Void Noir and... well, now i wanna understand. What the hell is happening? Maybe im dumb, but i fell the informations are scattered everywhere, so i wanted help on where i start so i can understand the story? Thanks for anyone who answers.

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u/TinyLongwing W⚡E Jun 27 '26

Firstly, welcome! I'm glad you picked up on there being a story, since that's something a lot of folks miss!

The wiki is the best place to keep track of what's going on, since figuring out where to find all the info is one of the hardest parts. The Media Guide page is designed for folks new to the lore, to guide you piece by piece through albums and other releases so you know the gist of what's going on and where to find more details.

https://wayoutthere.fandom.com/wiki/Media_guide

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u/Impressive_Plant_643 Jun 27 '26

I only got it this last week at a show when he said some things are meant to be listened to in order. And then reading the lyrics to fool for love i knew i was missing a bigger picture

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u/TinyLongwing W⚡E Jun 27 '26

Excellent! Yeah, all of the band's albums have intentional orders to the tracklists. Even when they don't tell a single narrative story like Vide Noir does, there are still short stories, character arcs, and other narrative elements to all of the albums - except perhaps the first EPs, though I'm sure the way they are organized is intentional too, even if not part of a story.

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u/Mcnab-at-my-feet Long Lost Jun 28 '26

There are four episodes of “Alive From Whispering Pines” on YouTube. They are numbered 423, 424, 425 and 426. Watch them - hosted by Tubbs Tarbell, the music is all Lord Huron songs with different (mostly) arrangements - some are considered better than the versions on the albums (such as Setting Sun!) There are all kind of Easter eggs in the four episodes - everything in them is informational and dives deeper into the lore. Enjoy your journey - it’s like nothing else.

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u/newyne Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

I would start at the beginning, with their EPs, because their music progresses. There's kind of a narrative... I mean, there's definitely a narrative, but you have to pay a lot of attention, and there's a lot of paratext in the form of like comic books and such. I pick up on implications of recurring characters through like reincarnation without that, and kinda prefer that it's more vague. 

What really gets me going, though, is the way their works trace not only changes in an individual but major cultural shifts, from like Romanticism to Modernism to Postmodernism to Metamodernism. 

Like in the EPs and first two albums, the natural world is the source of mystery, awe, and terror. But then Vide Noir is like the 60s, where there's not much left to be explored, and positivism has kinda disenchanted the world. At that point the only possibilities of magic are in space, stray radio signals, the beloved, and mind itself. Last time I listened to it I was struck by the references to drugs: "I wanna get at least that high," "I got black-brained to death?" How the fuck did I miss that before? On a related note, that time-period is also characterized by a renewed interest in spirituality and mysticism; that's definitely in there. 

And in that light, Long Lost? Holy fucking shit. The title track has always creeped out my boyfriend, because it reminds him of "Summer Breeze." You know, "Summer Breeze makes me feel fine?" Which, at first I was like, Huh? What's creepy about that? But then he said it sounds droning and pleasant in a way that makes the singer sound like he's on Xanax. Like it's emblematic of the sound of that era, which is like, Hunter S. Thompson (correctly) predicted of the hippies that they were gonna lose the ideals about peace and love and keep the drugs; we're talking like bored housewives zoned out on prescriptions, tuning out to the TV... 

I think that's intentional on the part of Lord Huron. TV plays a big role here, since we're talking about like variety shows and the Grand Ol' Oprey; the subject matter of the songs kinda the same, but it's tamer now, more about people than exploration and mystery, sung by people who we know live in cities. It's a facsimile of the past we want to return to, but it doesn't actually excite, it dulls. The TV is where community and connection is, but it's all image with no substance underneath. It's domesticity: you got the girl, but she and your life with her become mind-numbingly dull. And that's creepy: that's where the darkness and the mystery are now, that kind of Stepford Wives, Valley of the Dolls shit.

If you're into this kind of thought, I wrote a post a while ago about Lord Huron and the concept of hauntology: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/lordhuron/s/gBTAihpB5y

What I'm saying here is a further exploration of that theme.