LOON LANTERN: “INTERTIDAL ZONE” | Album Review

This day and age of music is filled with genre smashing, boundary pushing and wild experimentation. However, sometimes all you need to build a compelling song is simplicity. Enter Loon Lantern, a young musician hailing from Boston, MA who's music can have you swimming in your feels and pondering the past.

Loon Lantern’s debut project Intertidal Zone EP dropped this past January on her SoundCloud and Bandcamp following two cover songs previously posted, which I must talk about before the EP. One of these covers is the classic “My Favorite Things” by Julie Andrews, which Loon Lantern makes her own. The other is “True Love Will Find You in the End” by Daniel Johnston and this is where I can see one of Loon Lantern’s clear influences as fans of Johnston’s music will find a lot to love here.

Intertidal Zone contains three songs beginning with “Soon, So Soon” a short track, but nonetheless is a great start to the project. Gentle singing draws you in and the melodic strumming had me closing my eyes and swaying back and forth. The second track, and my favorite, is “Static Quater” with its soft guitar strumming and lyrics such as “Don't avoid me, I'm so lonely; need your echo to console me.” This song gives the feeling of pensive sadness brought out through passionate singing. The final song titled “Disappearing Act” with its cooing background vocals is soothing, while maintaining the same understated sadness of the rest of the EP. In particular, I love how Loon Lantern’s voice brings out the emotion and sincerity in her lyrics. My only criticism, and this applies to the project as a whole, is that I'd like to hear her voice without some of the reverb used on these songs. To me it sounds like Loon Lantern’s voice is powerful enough on its own without any effects and could make her songs feel more tender and heartfelt.

In the end Intertidal Zone is poetic and creates a melancholy atmosphere that will have you singing along and relating to the lyrics. It's a great start to the musician’s catalog and there's lots of potential to be found here. It's short, but it gets its point across. If you're looking for something quiet that aims for the heart, then this is a strong candidate.

Check out more from Loon Lantern here.