Mid-Saturday morning and I'm two tracks into the new Besnard Lakes album, (take a deep breath), The Besnard Lakes Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings, and I'm pretty much dumbstruck. Boy is this ambitious. It sounds like they're after some kind of unholy mix of Pet Sounds, Big Star's 3rd and Flaming Lips Soft Bulletin, and more remarkably that they might not actually fall too far short.
Besnard Lakes are a band that have popped up intermittently on my personal musical radar for a few years now without ever fully registering. I had to check just now as to whether I'd featured them here as a Song of the Day artist. Apparently I haven't. So I'm making amends in that respect anyhow. Because on the basis of what I've heard thus far, (listening as I type), it's the least they deserve. There's something quite fantastic going on here.
I'm clearly not alone. Uncut Magazine made the record their album of the month a couple of issues ago. I'm currently in a state of some frustration trying to track my copy down, having made the unforgivable error of tidying up my flat a couple of days ago. Never mind, I'll try to do the whole thing justice myself.
So, biographical basics. Besnard Lakes hail from Montreal, Canada and were formed way back in 2003. That's so long ago that you might be led to assume that they've long since lost any creative spark they may once have had. Trust me they haven't. There may be some true gems in their back catalogue, I'm sure there are, but frankly this one is more than enough for me, for right now and some time ahead I imagine.
The record is full of things that I would usually expect myself to hate. It also reminds me of Pink Floyd, and not the Pink Floyd that I'm generally partial too. Namely the Syd incarnation. But the Roger Waters one that I'm generally utterly allergic to is the one that comes most readily to mind here. Also other Prog offerings that I've never even been able to summon up the courage to immerse myself to even really listen to. The Alan Parsons Project. Peak period ELO. It ends with a seventeen minute title track for goodness sake. A seventeen minute title track which is utterly magnificent at that. Perhaps I've been ungenerous and should open myself up to some of these things. The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings is doing strange things to me. I'm quite lost in its cosmic wonder.
Because Wonder seems to be the key word here. The Besnard Lakes are adrift in Cosmic Wonder. Like your older brothers record collection, they remind you of things that you were born slightly to late for. Like another slightly less than hip reference point, The Moody Blues, they seem to find themselves in search for the mythical lost chord. I actually suspect they might have actually found it at some point during their journey.
I'm not sure what I'm writing will encourge you to investigate further. All I can say is that I urge you to do so. This is some record. I'm not altogether sure that it's entirely a 2021 album, (save for its solemnity and portentious themes),but it is a truly fascinating one, and one of great achievement and perhaps in this of all years we need to put aside inherent prejudices and lay ourselves open to what is so often and so foolishly described as guilty pleasures. The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings is full of guilty pleasures and I'll certainly be back for more. Time to make myself presentable and see if I can track down that copy of Uncut Magazine and remind myself to tidy up a bit more judiciously next time. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.
P.S. I found the magazine I was looking for. It was where you would have least expected to find it. In a pile of other music magazines. I was pleased to disover that the review, (well worth a read in itself), concurs with a lot of the conclusions I arrived at myself in the review here.
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