The Thousands

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to tell you about music via a flashing computer screen.

I wish I could just play you something at a party. Or make you a mix CD. Some things are better if you find them out by accident, or from a friend. The Besnard Lakes have too much personality for the impersonality of a computer screen.

Taking segments of rock songs and stretching them, like taffy, into slow, fuzzed-out, gorgeous sonic strands, The Besnard Lakes create something with familiar reference points but an entirely new structure. Each album has explored this same idea but with a different sound.

Debut Volume 1 was all about long pauses, prog progressions, and vast expanses. Are The Dark Horses had Beach Boys harmonies and Interpol grandeur. And Are The Roaring Night adds heavier classic rock riffs and drum kicks (and occasionally corny lyrics: “ewwww / you’re like the ocean”).

Actually, I wish you could just forget you read this review, go find this album in some weird, obscure place, buy it and become obsessed with it. It deserves that kind of mystique.