It can be a little bit unfair – describing bands by their relation to ancestors – but there’s something about The Besnard Lakes‘ “Albatross” (from their new release on Jagjaguwar: The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night) that makes me instantly think of The Jesus and Mary Chain. Well, The Jesus and Mary Chain going supernova, anyway. This is a song of epic architecture: of honey-coated vocals layered on top of waves of fuzz and driving beats. There is something about this Montreal band that is both immediately familiar, and yet fascinatingly new. And what makes them all the more intriguing is that every song is strikingly singular in its composition.
From “Disaster,” which wanders through more styles than a Brian Wilson album, to the “My Bloody Valentine jams with early-U2 in space” feel of “Thomasina,” I have this sense that I’ve discovered a handful of bands that are kindred spirits, rather than just the one. And it seems that I’m not quite alone in this feeling. As the folks at Jagjaguwar describe The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night:
The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night calls upon the influence of ELO and finer parts of the Alan Parsons Project in its orchestration. Still helped by the Ghost of Beach Boys Past, the album is more Dennis Wilson than Brian, and more Peter Green Fleetwood Mac than Lindsay Buckingham. That said, standout track “Albatross” has all the swagger of a Stevie Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac classic or Roy Orbison reimagined as a rollicking, snakeskin-booted Mazzy Star — dousing it all in gas and throwing the match as we hear its tale of Vancouver’s skid row and its inhabitants.
Perhaps it’s for this reason that I’ve been playing their superbly intense, uncompromisingly emotive music over and over since I first heard it. And now you can, too! Check out “Albatross,” and then go visit the above pages, and their myspace page, for more.
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