Post-rock is a difficult genre to get right. If you find a sound that works, you can't stick to it for too long without being called stubborn. If you're the sort of restless band that constantly tries to switch things up, you'll be called desperate. Sometimes, the trick is to not overthink things. Lost in the Riots could have waited until 2015 to follow up last year's impressive Stranger in the Alps, but they dropped the first single from its successor a mere 7 months after the debut saw the light of day. That's not something you normally do. Changing gears and greeting fans with an undeniably catchy lead single ('Kong', sounding as good in context as it did on its own), more immediate than anything you've previously written, isn't normally done like this either. There was a bridge they had to cross somewhere, but LITR probably torched it and flew across instead... or something equally outrageous, because music like this must have made them feel damn near unstoppable.
It's there in the bright and welcoming cover art, in stark contrast to their debut's muted tones. It's also there in the defiant title - moving on and making trails is what this band are all about. It borders on instrumental math-pop at times. If you're not immediately hooked by two-part opener 'Niamh'/'She Can't See Us If We Don't Move', then Move On, Make Trails probably isn't for you. Immediacy is the name of the game, and the opening trio, completed by 'Kong', aims right for the pleasure centre. Melodies and energy are important, but the cornerstone of the album is its willingness to experiment. While previous material often reached a logical drop-off point before moving onto the next idea, the likes of 'Dr Nightmare' and forceful second single 'Hey, Deathwish' are melting pots of musical fragments, with frequent changes in dynamics and time signature - the former, after careering through its opening two minutes, delivers a riff that will induce plenty of joyous headbanging, as indebted to Irish traditional music as anything else I've heard this year.
As unlikely as it would seem to have that sort of thing cropping up on an album like this, things are about to get stranger still, but not before attention is drawn to the stunning 'Halcyon Days of Summer', which opens with a riff in (I think) 9/8 that combines beautifully with versatile drumming and subtle synth overtones, before switching into 4/4 and letting harmonised guitars take over for a moment, before things kick off and the track erupts into a moment of pure euphoria that's akin to Destruction of Small Ideas-era 65daysofstatic on uppers. The fact that this happens within the track's opening two minutes speaks volumes - it's remarkably cohesive, yet highlights the quartet's willingness to throw shit at the wall and see what sticks; you'll come out of penultimate track 'Canyons' scarcely able to believe that it's just one song. There's dismantling conventional song structure, and then there's straight-up laughing in its face.
There are plenty of surprising detours taken, and this more energetic and ambitious approach to songwriting reaps rewards, but the band's not-so-difficult second album slows things down at a crucial point - rather than let things become overwhelming and detract from the impact of the 11-track record's strong back half, the acoustic instrumental 'Radiance' breaks things up for 90 seconds of low-key wistfulness. The new material is full-on enough to warrant taking a breather mid-way through, though when the front half of your album is as strong as this one's is, you can do whatever the hell you like as far as I'm concerned. Move On, Make Trails ends on as celebratory a note as it began, with the cinematic splendour of 'Just Tiny Little Rocks' finding room for gang vocals, a first for the band, letting ferocious guitar begin its gradual fade-out before overtaking it and bringing the past 50 minutes to an oddly peaceful close. Such a move would be seen as unnecessary by some, but it serves as the band's victory lap. The progress Lost in the Riots have made in 16 months is staggering; if you consider yourself a fan of post-rock to any extent, you need this in your life.
