The Southern- tinged psychedelic, shoegazer band from Quebec – The Besnard Lakes – are back with their third album, The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night. The husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas develop their expansive Beach Boys in Space sound with an enchanting mix of pre-97 Radiohead, My Morning Jacket, Band of Horses, and early Broken Social Scene or even My Bloody Valentine. The pair’s dueling voices are equally beautiful and haunting while adding a certain melancholy to the layers of ambient guitar and synthesizer. The second song is the epic “Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent pt. 1: the Innocent.” It grows and swells from a murky synth and piano intro into Lasek’s spectral Brian Wilson; with each verse the song builds into the soaring vocal harmony of the chorus. “Like the Ocean” clocks in at around 7 and a half minutes and may be a severely grandiose gesture for an album that refines, but fails to eclipse, the sound and feeling achieved in their previous The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse.
Olga sings on their first single, “Albatross.” It is another powerful and atmospheric twist on indie rock with her Brill Building vocals leading a churning haze of rock sounds. The layered backing vocals lend a feel of sweeping greatness while the fuzzy, echoing walls of guitar try to drown them in dream pop. The epic feel they display early seems present throughout the entire album, making it sound large and important. The album does sort of maintain the same tempo and feeling for the duration with only “And This is What We Call Progress‚” adding an uptempo rocker. The albums atmospheric production keeps the pace from being plodding or dull while their powerful voices and the songs’ strength and construction elevate Roaring Night to a higher realm.
Originally appeared on REAX Online, February 9, 2010
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