Lori & the Darlings’ standout single, High, taken from their 2024 LP, Main Street, is a richly rendered addition to the Americana rock canon. Lori, whose voice is naturally poised for creating instant classics, shines iridescently bright in this emotion-driven vignette, exposing the capacity of connection to lead to transcendence. The instrumentals efficaciously visualise the inexplicably sweet sensation, with shimmering organ tones stretching to nirvana, giving High oceanic depth for listeners to plunge into and swim with the rhythmically resolving tides.
Lori’s vocals deliver the grit of Courtney Love, infused with the soul of Leigh Nash and Meredith Brooks, nestling into the scarcely-occupied middle ground where artists swathe their harmonies with seraphic sentimentality and project potency to amplify evocative intensity.
No review of High would be complete without pouring plaudits on the guitars that make the track such a sense-gratifying listen. The steady ring of the chords pulls you through the euphonically stripped production until they burst in momentum in the middle eight, proving that Lori & the Darlings have earned their place among their Americana rock icons.
With more releases in the pipeline from the Detroit-based four-piece which captures the highs and lows of big-city dreamers in small-town America, do we really need to tell you to give them a follow?
Stream the Main Street LP from Lori & the Darlings on Spotify now.
Review by Amelia Vandergast