The Besnard Lakes

1. Blackstrap
2. Raindrops
3. Christmas Can Wait 
4. Our Heads, Our Hearts on Fire Again
5. Feuds With Guns
6. The Dark Side of Paradise
7. New Revolution
8. The Father of Time Wakes Up
9. Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings

The Besnard Lakes have passed through death and they're here to tell the tale. Nearly five years after their last lightning-tinted volley, the magisterial Montreal psych-rock band have sworn off compromise, split with their long-standing label, and completed a searing, 72-minute suite about the darkness of dying and the light on the other side.

The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is the group's sixth album and the first in more than 15 years to be released away from a certain midwestern American indie record company. After 2016's A Coliseum Complex Museum - which saw Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas attempting shorter, less sprawling songs - the Besnards and their label decided it was time to go their separate ways; with that decision came a question of whether to even continue the project at all. What use is a band with an instinct for long, tectonic tunes - rock songs with chthonic heft and ethereal grace, five or 10 or 18 minutes long? How do you sell that in an age of bite-sized streaming? How do you make it relevant?

"Who gives a shit!" the Besnard Lakes realized. Ignited by their love for each other, for playing music together, the sextet found themselves unspooling the most uncompromising recording of their career. Despite all its grandeur, ...The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings honours the very essence of punk rock: the notion that a band need only be relevant to itself. At last the Besnard Lakes have crafted a continuous long-form suite: nine tracks that could be listened together as one, like Spiritualized's Lazer Guided Melodies or even Dark Side of the Moon, overflowing with melody and harmony, drone and dazzle, the group's own unique weather.

Here now, the Besnard Lakes finally dispensed with the two/three-year album cycle, taking all the time they needed to conceive, compose, record and mix their opus. Some of its songs were old, resurrected from demos cast aside years ago. Others were literally woodshedded in the cabanon behind Lasek and Goreas's "Rigaud Ranch" - invented and reinvented, relishing this rougher sound. Some of that distortion makes its way into the final mix: an incandescent crackle that had receded from the Besnards' more recent output. 

Rightly - nay, definitively! - The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is a double LP. "Near Death" is the title of the first side. "Death," "After Death," and "Life" follow next. It's literally a journey into (and back from) the brink: the story of the Besnard Lakes' own odyssey but also a remembrance of others', especially the death of Lasek's father in 2019. Being on your deathbed is perhaps the most psychedelic trip you can go on: in Lasek's father's case, he surfaced from a morphine dream to talk about "a window" on his blanket, with "a carpenter inside, making intricate objects." That experience pervades the album, catching fire on the song "Christmas Can Wait"; elsewhere the band pays tribute to the late Mark Hollis and, on "The Father of Time Wakes Up," they mourn the death of Prince.

In these scorched and pitted times, as the world smoulders, there might be nothing less trendy than an hour-long psych-rock epic by a band of Canadian grandmasters. Then again, there might be nothing we need more. ...The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is a bright-blazing requiem: nine tunes that are one tune and six musicians who make one band - unleashed and unconstrained, piercing and technicolour. At the end of the golden day, the Besnard Lakes are right where they should be. 

Liner Notes

Written, produced and composed by Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas
Recorded at The Rigaud Ranch and Breakglass Studios
Mixed by Jace Lasek at Breakglass Studios
Mastered by Philip Gosselin

Artwork by
Corri-Lynn Tetz (Front & Back Cover)
Todd Stewart (Inside Gatefold Design)
Dave Thomas (Album layout)
Olga Goreas ( Handwritten font)

Track by track 

Blackstrap
Drums – Kevin Laing
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek, Robbie MacArthur
Gtr Solos – Robbie MacArthur
Synthesizers and keyboards – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
Vocals – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas, Sheenah Ko
Omnichord – Jace Lasek
Drone Commander – Jace Lasek
Found Sounds – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas

Raindrops
Drums – Kevin Laing
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek
12-String – Robbie MacArthur
Synthesizers and keyboards – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
Vocals – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas, Sheenah Ko
String and horn arrangements – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas

Christmas Can Wait
Drums – Kevin Laing
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek, Richard White
Baritone guitar – Robbie MacArthur
Synthesizers and keyboards – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas, Sheenah Ko
Vocals – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
String and horn arrangements – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
Omnichord – Jace Lasek
Organ drone – Welkom In De Blaak

Our Heads, Our Hearts On Fire Again
Drums – Kevin Laing
Percussion – Jace Lasek, Kevin Laing
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek, Robbie MacArthur
Baritone guitar – Robbie MacArthur
Synthesizers and keyboards – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
Vocals – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
String and horn arrangements – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
Therevox – Jace Lasek

Feuds With Guns
Drums – Kevin Laing
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek, Robbie MacArthur
Guitar solo – Jace Lasek
Synthesizers and keyboards – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas, Sheenah Ko
Vocals – Jace Lasek
String and horn arrangements – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas

The Dark Side of Paradise
Drums – Kevin Laing
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek
12-string – Robbie MacArthur
Guitar solos – Robbie MacArthur
Synthesizers and keyboards – Jace Lasek, Sheenah Ko
Vocals – Jace Lasek
Organ drone – Welkom In De Blaak

New Revolution
Drums – Kevin Laing
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek, Robbie MacArthur
Guitar solo – Jace Lasek
Synthesizers and keyboards – Sheenah Ko
Vocals – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas, Sheenah Ko

The Father of Time Wakes Up
Drums – Kevin Laing, Loel Campbell
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek
Guitar solo 1 – Robbie MacArthur
Guitar solo 2 – Mark Cuthbertson
Synthesizers and keyboards – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
Vocals – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas, Sheenah Ko
Found sounds – Jace Lasek

Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings
Drums – Kevin Laing
Percussion – Jace Lasek, Kevin Laing
Bass – Olga Goreas
Guitars – Jace Lasek, Robbie MacArthur
12-string – Robbie MacArthur
Guitar solos – Robbie MacArthur
Synthesizers and keyboards – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
Vocals – Jace Lasek
String and horn arrangements – Jace Lasek, Olga Goreas
Organ drone – Welkom In De Blaak