The Lumineers est un groupe américain de Denver, Colorado formé autour de ses deux membres fondateurs : Wesley Schultz (chant, guitare) et Jeremiah Fraites (batterie, percussions, piano). Ils enregistrent ensemble depuis 2005.
Dans la même veine que Mumford & Sons, violoncelle, mandoline, batterie, guitare et piano s’accordent dans un folk-rock acoustique exécuté avec spontanéité et enthousiasme. Cette énergie se retrouve également sur scène, sans altérer toutefois l’émotion de leurs compositions intimistes.
Le son dépouillé du groupe s’inspire largement des influences de Bob Dylan, The Stones, Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty et Bruce Springstein.

Leur dernier album intitulé III est paru en septembre 2019. En forme de chapitres, cet album plus mature et plus sombre est l’occasion pour The Lumineers de mettre sur pied un projet qui leur trottait dans la tête depuis leurs débuts.

English

The Lumineers are an American band from Denver, Colorado. The founding members are Wesley Schultz (lead Vocals, Guitar) & Jeremiah Fraites (drums, Percussion, Piano).  They have been recording together since 2005. The band’s stripped back sound draws heavily on the influences of Bob Dylan, The Stones, Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty & Bruce Springstein. They are known for their energetic live shows and have had several international hit singles including ‘Ho Hey’, ‘Stubborn Love’, ‘Ophelia’ and ‘Cleopatra’.

On The Lumineers’ audacious new album, III (Dualtone, September 13), every note, every syllable, and every moment of silence in between is emotionally charged. Through its course, songwriters Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites make it emphatically clear that the arrangements don’t have to be dense for the songs to be intense.

For this pivotal project, Schultz and Fraites brought Simone Felice back into the fold and added violinist Lauren Jacobson. Felice helmed the group’s chart-topping, certified platinum second album, Cleopatra (2016), and Jacobson has now appeared on all three Lumineers’ albums and has played with them since 2011. She has also joined the band as a touring member, joining pianist Stelth Ulvang, bassist/backing vocalist Byron Isaacs and multi-instrumentalist Brandon Miller. (After eight years, cellist/vocalist Neyla Pekarek left the group in 2018 to embark on a solo career.)

The work is titled III not just because it’s The Lumineers’ third full-length album, but more significantly because nine songs are presented in three chapters, each focusing on one of three main characters (in addition to the nine songs the album contains an instrumental plus three more bonus songs that don’t fit in the narrative). The chapters also serves as the visual bookend for a sequential video series comprising the nine tracks, each directed by Kevin Phillips (whose 2017 film Super Dark Times is streaming on Netflix).