#7
The Besnard Lakes
The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse
It’s been quite a banner musical year for our neighbors to the north. Yet despite all the highly anticipated Canadian albums to come out in 2007, it was The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse from heretofore unknown Montreal collective The Besnard Lakes that raced in from out of nowhere to claim one of the year’s finest releases (a dark horse, indeed).
The group, apparently named after a body of water in northern Saskatchewan, has crafted a sound that owes an immense debt to the dreamy, drony psych-rock and heavy guitar riffery of the early 1970s. Yet, at the same time, it sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Hats off to principal songwriters (and husband and wife team) Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, who have concocted this mesmerizing blend of Beach Boys-esque harmonies, electric guitar heroics and swirling orchestral strings that add extra layers of atmosphere to the beautifully murky mix.
But most impressive of all is The Besnard Lakes’s expert use of dynamics, lulling you at first, then building up to impossibly intense crescendos. Nowhere is this more evident than in the album’s riveting opener, “Disaster,” which starts off with sweet Brian Wilson-style falsetto vocals, accompanied by delicately strummed guitar, gentle violins and horns—and which, by the end, has rocketed into an all-out wall-of-sound stomp.
There are plenty of other examples, but listening to The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, you quickly realize that the individual songs matter far less than the overall flow of the album. You don’t so much listen to The Besnard Lakes as immerse yourself in their distinctive sound-world—like dunking your head under the shimmering surface and taking in all the different colors, patterns and shapes that swim by. Hey, maybe they were on to something with their band name after all.
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