An Escape with The Besnard Lakes at Bowery Ballroom

I’m not sure exactly what it is about Montreal that lends itself to producing musicians that really know how to perfect the art of an atmospheric soundscape. Graceful, languishing, nuanced, and layered music with just the right amount of fuzz just seems to pour out of the city, and The Besnard Lakes are one of those bands that pull it off superbly. They just drew their North American tour to a close, and I caught them at Bowery Ballroom when they hit New York towards the end.

Much of that tour was with their Montreal neighbors Suuns, but for the last three dates they had Boston-based minimalist slow wave band Gem Club as support, and who was also quite moving in their own way. The Besnard Lakes was the grand experience, however. Led by husband and wife duo Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, and rounded out by drummer Kevin Laing and guitarist Richard White, the four piece indie rock outfit really filled the space with transportive sound. They have brilliant shoegaze sensibilities, much in the same way as 90s alternative indie band Ride, while sounding intensely well crafted.

Jace and Olga have this smooth way of trading off vocals like on “For Agent 13,” when their lines are nuanced enough to tell that there is a subtle difference in tone, but they have the same ease and flow. From my angle to the stage, Olga’s voice was a little harder to hear, but I did hear her basslines loud and clear, which was always an extremely necessary element in the songs. I really had Jace’s falsetto straight on, and with all of Richard’s awesomely dirgey guitar licks. When they played “Albatross,” his fill-ins had a borderline Black Sabbath quality. They played their new single “People of the Sticks” right in the middle of the set, which has such a great melody. In general, the band is adept at crafting these tension-building intros and peaks that meld right in hitting the downbeat hard. It would also be these moments in the songs that the lights would glare and strobe, illuminating the smoke pouring out and rising from the machine just offstage, and being so bright the band became silhouettes rocking out in a sonic maelstrom. It was a heightened good feeling, and a great escape.

The Besnard Lakes are still on tour till August across Europe and back to Canada. They tweet about stuff and they also have several photos of bobby pins in their Instagram gallery. Their brand new full length, Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO is out now.

Like us on Facebook at BestNewBands.com and follow us on Twitter at @BestNewBandscom and@DansonsEncore