The Besnard Lakes
Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO
(Jagjaguwar)

Four albums into their career, The Besnard Lakes are one of those bands whose music can’t be easily compared to anything else. Their latest, Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO  can easily be summed up with, “Yep, it’s a Besnard Lakes album.”

That is to say, it’s a crisp, big, psychedelic production rife with lovely vocal harmonies, simple,but dense and drawn-out arrangements that are almost prog rock, but not nearly as impenetrable.

If there’s one key difference here though, it is that things are a whole lot dreamier than on previous albums. There’s a rich cloak of reverb that makes everything, especially the luscious vocals, float on clouds. Even when things get a bit louder, as during the crest of the opening “46 Satires,” it’s all a big blissful, enveloping swirl. As always with this group, this doesn’t prevent some, at times, catchy and moving melodies and moments from popping through, as on the groovy stomp, “People of the Sticks.”

The penultimate “Colour Yr Lights In” is prime Besnards in all their glitzy, big-city, wall-of-sound-echoey glory. The closing “Alamogordo” is equally as epic, but closes things out with nearly three minutes of tranquil synth drone.

I can’t help but be reminded of the “neo shoegaze” tag at times when listening, but seldom these days do you hear a style so well blended with such properly arranged and lovely rock songs. The Besnard Lakes have always been a powerful, but sadly all too underrated band, and it seems that will continue to be the case here, but hopefully not much longer for the latter.