Beings

Personnel: Angela Chan (strings); Simon Dennis, Tim Hurst (brass).Audio Mixer: Paul Gregory.Following a couple more lineup changes but with the founding core of singer Hazel Wilde, multi-instrumentalist Paul Gregory, and drummer Oliver Ketteringham still intact, Lanterns on the Lake present Beings, their absorbing third long-player. Written and recorded as a group in the band's rehearsal space with Gregory again overseeing production, the album doesn't mark a change in direction so much as an expansion; their signature atmospheric despondence remains but with scaled-up textures for lusher climaxes and, more to the point, starker contrasts. The loose and spacy opener, "Of Dust & Matter," for instance, has a broad range of instruments and effects, including much that is unidentifiable: what sound like processed samples, sci-fi film-like murmurs, and eerie thumps alongside marching keyboard chords, wailing electronics, full drums, and chiming electric guitars. At times the spooky méla