The New Music

The Besnard Lakes twisting chronicle, or fever dream, of spies, double agents, novelists and aspiring rock gods has turned violent. Loyalty, dishonor, love, hatred all seen through the eyes of two spies, fighting a war that may not be real. One follows the other as they receive coded messages and spread destruction. The city is burning, and it’s to the benefit of music obsessives everywhere. Once again, the husband-and-wife duo of Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek has crafted a majestic, sprawling vision of guitar bombast and captivating pop experiments.

That’s some heavy shit. But in a nutshell, that’s the new Besnard Lakes album. The Besnard Lakes Are Roaring the Night follows up 2007’s The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, an album that not only earned the Montrealers a Polaris Prize nomination but also a record deal with Jagjaguwar (outside of Canada), international acclaim and a gig writing the score for Mark Ruffalo’s directorial debut, Sympathy for Delicious.

On their third album, The Besnard Lakes descend deeper and deeper into murky, shoegaze territory, stacking layers of feedback, reverb and drone to no end. But as they’ve proven before, this is not a band that can be simplified. Within their hazy production are traces of a musical pedigree that incorporates arena rock guitar explosions, orchestral blessings and harmonies that are usually reserved for pop’s widespread approval.

“Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent” opens the album in two parts: The Ocean and The Innocent. The first is a preliminary interlude of instrumental bliss, while the second is immersed in undulating pedal-driven noise, elevating Lasek’s high register until it bursts into an inferno of hypnotic guitar jams and blazing solos that acts as a prep for the album by hitting you like a jolting shot of adrenaline.

“Chicago Train” takes a breather and falls into a transcending spell of tender string arrangements that recall Spiritualized. It doesn’t last though - the string players are forced to give way to the band who come in riding a wave of crashing guitars.

“Albatross” and “Glass Printer” all make for stronger arguments about a shoegazing fixation: the former falls into a reverie built around wonky, off-tuned guitars and the angelic vocals of Goreas, which undeniably signals My Bloody Valentine’s swooning influence; the latter cranks up the swirling feedback to flow with the lackadaisical drumming that falls more under the more rock stylings of Swervedriver.

But the use of Led Zeppelin’s mixing desk hasn’t been lost in the band’s dense layers. Another two-parter comes with “Land Of Living Skies,” the first of which is a laconic instrumental of radio hiss, the second more of a mid-tempo rock that descends into a convergence of the band’s massive, swelling sonics.

The Besnard Lakes Are Roaring the Night is an vast ocean of sound, where the melodies are streamed through fuzzed out psychedelia and loud bursts of random noise. Feel it for yourself and get swept away.

Click here to listen to a stream of The Besnard Lakes Are Roaring the Night.