Album Review: The Besnard Lakes - Are The Roaring Night, Free Track Included!

I tried to find a new album for my first review that: a) I really, really liked and b) was from a band that was not Canadian. I had to sacrifice the latter for the former in this case, but trust me, I do listen to music produced outside the Great White North. Nevertheless, Canada has become fertile ground for great indie product. Not unlike past musical eras that centered around places like Seattle, Minneapolis, Washington DC, Chapel Hill, Manchester (UK), our friends to the north must have put something in the water supply that causes every band to be spot-on, creating a never-ending stream of music and influence.

Montreal-based The Besnard Lakes are a collective led by married couple Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas. Their songs are often epic in length and sound; they are slow builds into bombastic exuberance tempered with emotion-tinged vocals. The opening two tracks of the new album "Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent" send a the clear message that their great 2007 album Are The Dark Horse was not the exception. There is a dramatic duality here. Atmospheric keyboard hum is the laid terrain while drums like slamming doors and rock (metal?) guitar riffs trod over the top laying waste to all in its path. Lacek employs a cracking falsetto that borders on weeping when the music splashes and spills over. When Lasek and Goreas sing together "You're like the ocean...You're like the innocent...What's in your empty eyes...Take the noose around my neck, take it off...", they convey that relationship dynamic of simultaneous love and fear. The nearly nine minutes ends like a extension cord yank, and the listener only gets a moment to breathe before the next track.

The rest of the album follows the initial path with the songs mining deep into a space-rock foundation. Each new track is a pillar holding up the sky-wide canvas of the album, swirling feedback and pedal changes work the frenzied aesthetic. The best example is "Glass Printer", grinding and bursting in a firework of sound. Goreas' lead vocals on the track "Albatross" bring The Besnard Lakes to their most mainstream, cooing like Kim Deal and in the end becoming like a Dave Fridmann-produced wall of feedback and fuzz. Other standouts include "And This Is What We Call Progress" using guitar twang like a lonely trip across the desert at night. The Besnard Lakes have a soft side too, fittingly end the album with buoyant beauty "The Lonely Moan". If there is a weakness in Are The Roaring Night, songs like "Light Up The Night" can get overwrought and long winded while falling short on the intended impact.

Flipping through other review sources, there are a lot of cross-references to soundalikes or influences. Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Sigur Ros, ELO, British Shoegazer, The Beach Boys, Spiritualized and, of course, fellow Montreal bands The Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene are all name checked. I can see the elements but really feel The Besnard Lakes are not derivative of any one band or style. As any good collective, they throw the ingredients into a blender and flip it on the noisiest setting. The results are greater than the parts used with no quick and satisfying single to be found. When listening to music with an epic style such as The Besnard Lakes, the payoff is worth the wait.

Track List

1. Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent Pt. 1: The Ocean
2. Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent Pt. 2: The Innocent
3. Chicago Train
4. Albatross
5. Glass Printer
6. Land Of Living Skies Pt.1: The Land
7. Land Of Living Skies Pt. 2: The Living Skies
8. And This Is What We Call Progress
9. Light Up The Night
10. The Lonely Moan
    

Download the song "Albatross" for free here.

Purchase the album here.