Folk-based tracks about sinister, self-effacing, and downright creepy characters taking on love, loss, and damaging family histories all set in vaguely historical time periods.  No this isn’t a new Decemberists’ record, much as a slew of bloggers might want you to think. Lament for Children is Loch Lomond’s first release on Hush Records.  The music here is barebones, all acoustic guitar and strings set on the most basic of rhythm sections.  It hints at old Brit-folk, but not quite.  And “not quite” is the prevailing phrase for this album.  These narrators are not quite as creepy or empathetic or lovelorn as singer Ritchie Young seems to think they are, and his over-accented, melodramatic vocals lend to the feeling that this is a record that Young and co. over-thought.  For all its folk intentions, there is little of the organic nature of folk music in this record and while it has its moments—opener “Bear and a Bird” and “Grandad and Toothache” in particular—Loch Lomond don’t quite live up to their own aspirations.

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