Ben Schneider has always obscured the lines between dreamscape and desert trail, myth and memory, song and story. With The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, the fifth studio album from his folk-rock collective Lord Huron, Schneider poses an incredibly cosmic question - what if you could choose your fate like picking a song from a jukebox? What if, he asks, your finger slipped and you picked the wrong one?

The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 carries on and even expands Lord Huron’s ever-evolving universe with 12 tracks of ethereal Americana and haunted harmonies anchored in Schneider’s storytelling and spectral vision. Written and co-produced by Schneider and brought to life alongside bandmates Tom Renaud, Mark Barry, and Miguel Briseño, the album also includes some surprise guests, including Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead and even Kristen Stewart, who lends ghostly vocals to the slow-burning single “Who Laughs Last.”

Where 2021’s Long Lost played like a faded transmission from the past, The Cosmic Selector is tuned to a frequency both futuristic and fatalistic. Lead single “Nothing I Need” drips with dusty melancholy, while “Fire Eternal” featuring Makino builds into a meditative, shoegaze-washed shimmer. On “Looking Back,” Schneider turns existential. “The weight of your past can distort your present and future,” he explains, “the way massive celestial objects warp the fabric of the universe.”

Lord Huron have always wrapped their records in mystery with elaborate liner notes, fictional characters, surreal visuals, and The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 is no exception. The album’s artwork features a strange, glowing jukebox-like machine — the Cosmic Selector itself — a symbol of the central question driving the record: is fate a fixed groove in vinyl or something you can nudge the needle on?

If this is just the first volume, the implication is clear... more fate-pondering and time-bending is on the way. But as a standalone, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 already feels like the band’s most philosophical record so far. Schneider hasn’t lost his gift for conjuring lonely outposts and existential crossroads, but this time he’s staring into the night sky, asking what happens when the song you pick isn’t the one you were meant to choose. That fate might be out of your hands, but the soundtrack is yours to spin.