The Besnard Lakes make music as elegant as their album titles are clunky. The Montreal quartet’s fourth record, Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO, is no exception. The group’s co-auteurs, Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, approach the construction of Besnard Lakes’ LPs with the same level of fastidiousness that Brian Wilson and Roger Waters displayed on masterworks of studiocraft like Pet Sounds and Dark Side of the Moon. Lasek and Goreas aren’t mere songwriters who produce pop tunes; they are composers who create musical suites out of sweepingly melodic movements. Until in Excess is the most “composed” Besnard Lakes’ album yet-- the band worked on different sections of the album’s eight songs, and shifted them around like puzzle pieces until achieving the perfect specimens of epic-osity that Lasek and Goreas heard echoing like an interstellar church choir in their heads.
Which is to say, Until in Excess more or less delivers on the “wow” factor one has come to expect from a Besnard Lakes album. As with 2007’s The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse and 2010’s The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night, Until in Excess doesn’t skimp on the creamy vocal harmonies, booming drum rattles, cinematic strings swooshes, and wicked David Gilmour guitar solos that explode out of the murk with dependably dramatic elan. Well, actually, there aren’t that many guitar solos on Until the Excess: “People of the Sticks” climaxes with some awe-inspiring six-string heroics by Lasek, as does the slow-building “Colour Yr Lights In”, where the squiggly arpeggios lift the anthemic chorus to the precipice of prog-rock nirvana. But aside from the heavy riffing that grinds throughout “At Midnight”, rock music takes a backseat to loftier ambitions on Until in Excess. Lasek and Goreas instead turn the uplifting expressiveness that Besnard Lakes is known for in on itself, fostering a mood of introspective melancholy on a series of slow, orchestral-like pieces.
Most of Until in Excess resembles “Catalina”, a beautiful slow-motion shoegazer symphony that lards on nearly two minutes of introductory new-age synths before easing into the glimmering, mid-tempo meat of the track. Besnard Lakes reliably fill the vastness of their huge-sounding music with immaculate musical ornamentation, and “Catalina” is a fine example of their impeccable Canadian architecture. (Look out for the dreamy surf-guitar accents laid out delicately in the mix that don’t make themselves fully discernible until the third or fourth listen.) “The Specter” is another stunner, opening with a splashy electric keyboard lick that soon gives way for exquisite guitar-driven counter-melodies and spectral mellotron washes. Neither track seems all that concerned with chorus-verse orderliness, which suits a record that favors atmosphere over punchy songs.
So, yes, Until in Excess is another Besnard Lakes’ album album that stubbornly demands to be absorbed all at once, from beginning to end. Other than “People of the Sticks”, the individual songs haven’t been designed to stick out from the whole; the deliberate pace makes the entirety of Until in Excess feel like one long, woozy track. While the winking title doesn’t exactly do the album justice-- it’s not as “excessive” so much as “dense”-- Until in Excess does lack some of the immediacy of Besnard Lakes’ other records. The album closing “Alamogordo” ends with three attention-killing minutes of ambient noise, finally wearing out the welcome for an otherwise captivating collection. For all its beauty, Until in Excess is a little draggy; the balance of ethereal grace and all-out force that distinguished their breakout Dark Horse has tipped a little too far to the ponderous side. Until in Excess rewards patience, but the roar of old is missed.
