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
- Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent Pt. 1: The Ocean
- Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent Pt. 2: The Innocent
- Chicago Train
- Albatross
- Glass Printer
- Land Of Living Skies Pt.1: The Land
- Land Of Living Skies Pt. 2: The Living Skies
- And This Is What We Call Progress
- Light Up The Night
- The Lonely Moan
Download the song "Albatross" for free here.
Purchase the album here.
If you like your music in two-to-three minute pop-punk chunks, then Tokyo Police Club is the band for you. This four-piece from Ontario is releasing their second full length album titled "Champ" via Mom and Pop Records on June 8. If it is anything like their first LP, it won't quite reach that "full length" status in time. The eleven tracks collectively didn't clear the half-hour mark.
The Pritzker Pavillion in Millennium Park is truly a beautiful space with unparalleled sound for an outdoor arena. Now, don't get me started on how much the entire park cost the future of Chicago or that it was ultimately a prestige project leveraged by our Mayor-for-life King Daley in a unprecedented half-assed bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Now that I got that off my chest...
It is the weekend. Are you ready to shake a tailfeather? The Juan Maclean are the latest artist to throw their hat into the ring to mix a DJ-Kicks set. If you are a casual electronica fan, the DJ Kicks series is the perfect sampler plate to whet your appetite.
Bonus: If you email subscribe to The Juan Maclean at their website, they front you another freebie. An outtake from the recording sessions for their 2009 LP The Future Will Come, "Humans Will Bring You Down" is an atmospheric instrumental a-la Boards Of Canada, with airy keyboards and drumbeat clicks to chill you out. Have a fine weekend.
The odd little geometric explosion you see to the left is the cover art for the new single by The National. Also oddly named, the song "Bloodbuzz Ohio" will be on the forthcoming album High Violet on 4AD due out May 11.
Seems strange that this release coincides with the untimely passing of Alex Chilton, but after five years of quiet Big Star-aficionados Teenage Fanclub have a new album out on Merge June 8. The Scottish blokes have been generous enough to release the new track in advance for free.
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.
Zooey Deschanel is a solid actress. She can play someone you can't help loving, someone who could break your heart like snapping a twig ( yet you still love her) or someone who is batshit crazy (yet you still love her). I still chuckle about her character Kat in Weeds constantly referring to her Inuit boyfriend "Abumchuck".
But I digress. She & Him is a duo of M. Ward and Deschanel playing endearingly cute music with sweet flitting hooks like batting eyelashes across a dusty library. They have a new album entitled Volume 2 out March 23rd that has a catchy new song and a video (below) to match. Check out Zooey channeling Feist and her film (500) Days of Summer with a mating dance sequence that makes M. Ward out to be a candidate for this year's best actor for ignoring her comely moves and looks.
The past year or so has been a stampede of celebrity deaths, but this is the first one I feel needs more Internet eulogies and press coverage.
