After a couple of years of promise through shows of ambition, Cloud Castle Lake suddenly returned yesterday with news of an EP called Dandelion which is due on September 22nd on Happy Valley Records. The band are now a trio of Daniel McAuley, Brendan Jenkinson and Rory O’Connor.
Previously, the band’s output hadn’t amounted to more than a couple of covers and some live videos.
I’d previously been critical of Daniel McAuley’s vocals on the I Am The Cosmos album, a production that was admirable but that has often felt trying (I still now waver from liking it to hating it).
On ‘Sync’, McAuley’s high falsetto has a more natural fit to his own band’s ornate arrangement (plus Cosmos’ Ross Turner on drums). The song grows from brass tones through percussive passages to a peak of rhythmic almost jazz-rock. It’s evidence that all that time spent being coy and shy with their material in the intervening years was definitely a good move, as while technically, the song is on their debut release, there is combined years of experience heard here.
The song is on iTunes and the EP can be pre-ordered. The band have live dates in London and Dublin:
Whelans, Dublin – Sat 20th September
The Sebright Arms, London – Thurs 25th September
