Besnard Lakes - Tonight - Ottawa

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Anyone hitting this show? The only time I've seen these guys, last year opening for Wolf Parade in Montreal, they put on an awesome show.

I'm 75% sure I'll be there

Curse of The Besnard Lakes

New album, same old curse

Simply put, Montreal experimental pop-explosion The Besnard Lakes are cursed. Some of the curse could be bad luck, as was the case in '04 when they released their debut album Volume 1 the same year as fellow Montrealers Arcade Fire and Stars. Ouch, bad timing. Everything else that emerged that same year either got lumped into one big blob known from then on as the Montreal Scene or were simply swept under the carpet - Besnard Lakes were to suffer the latter.

Two years later, the six-piece band is set to release the brilliant follow-up The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse (February 20), and guess what? Arcade Fire and the Stars will be releasing new albums this year as well.

Jace Lasek, one of the band's principal songwriters, laughs. "Yeah, I know, I know."

"[in the end] we sold a thousand records. I was just happy about that," he adds about a record that was self-promoted, self-recorded and "a bit strange."

Second time around, Fortune seems to be smiling upon a band named after a Saskatchewan lake. Outside Music is distributing their new album here in Canada whilst Jagjaguwar is handling things south of the border. And the new record is deservedly getting rave reviews.

But strange things have been happening. Even their U.S. label has noticed: "During the quietest section in the song Disaster, a bartender dropped a load of dishes onto the floor. On another occasion [...] the front-of-house console actually turned off then on again, creating a thunderous crack throughout the theatre. And Kevin Laing [drummer] suffered second-degree burns on his face the day after completing drum tracks [for the album]," states Jagjaguwar's website.

"Sixty to seventy per cent of the time, weird things happen whenever we play Disaster," Lasek adds.

But maybe Besnard Lakes brought some of that curse upon themselves. Along with song titles like Disaster and Devastation, the artwork is of apocalyptic-like black horses covered in hellfire.

On the lighter side of things, The Dark Horse is unabashedly pop. Borrowing from some of history's best examples of unconventional pop - The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, Roy Orbison and in particular Brian Wilson - The Besnard Lakes combine the past with moments of experimentation to create something "fresh". Lasek's Wilson-like falsettos, or the his-and-hers harmonies with Olga Goreas (his wife), are often interrupted with distinct, orchestral crashes. Twinkling xylophones, gentle piano and melancholic horns seem to free-fall amidst the chaos of wailing guitars and thunderous drums. And yet within all of that are stories filled with secrets, lies and moments of personal crisis. Perhaps it's here within this musical exorcism that the band's curse will finally lift.

The Besnard Lakes

w/ Amos The Transparent

Friday, January 26, $8

Zaphod's

[zero]

This group sounds really intriguing to me.

[SaggyBalls]

they're great. and very loud.

be prepared.

[allison]

I really liked them the other night.They were loud but loud and lush-which I like.