ALBUM REVIEW: The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings

Full Time Hobby

Released: 29.01.21

Much of the advance word for this return to action from The Besnard Lakes has boasted of the scope and length of their latest work, sequenced as one extended suite, as a two-fingered salute to their former label. In truth, what’s notable here isn’t the extended duration of the album (largely a consequence of the extended ambient conclusion that bloats out the side-spanning closer) but how it cannily re-positions the pop moves of the preceding A Coliseum Complex Museum not as an outlier but a refinement of their space-rock modus operandi.

On the Prince testimonial New Revolution, slowcore glam of Our Heads, Our Hearts on Fire Again and the astral blues of Raindrops, it’s the beating pop heartbeat beneath the grandiose arrangements that helps The Besnard Lakes take flight again.