The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse Image
Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 17 Critics What's this?

User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 44 Ratings

  • Summary: Album number two for the Canadian indie-rockers is their first for Jagjaguwar.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 17
  3. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. Their overarching fingernail-meets-chalkboard eeriness... is what prevents a lapse into the preciousness that sometimes accompanies orchestrated indie rock, making the album a rousing success. [#16, p.90]
  2. Too big in their influences and scope to fit in even the biggest pigeonhole imaginable, The Besnard Lakes thankfully produce music chock-full of tunes and spine-tingly loveliness not seen since The Beach Boys or more recently the sheer joy and ridiculous grandeur of The Polyphonic Spree.
  3. Heroic, monumental and wondrously sensual.
  4. It's like a Beach Boys album when it's calm and a Queen album when it's crunchy, but all filtered through what must be one hell of a record collection over at the Goreas-Lasek homestead.

See all 17 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 30
  2. Negative: 2 out of 30
  1. JoelZ.
    10
    One of those albums I largely was unimpressed with at first listen but 10 listens later blown away, so intricate and beautiful.
  2. sebastiant.
    8
    very, very sharp. havent tired of it yet, though at first i expected that i would. i have seen them live too, and as another poster noted, the smoke machines are something else! Expand
  3. dana
    7
    ripping off coldplay? the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. coldplay are one of the most tired, unoriginal bands in existence. these guys are ok and certainly not a copy of a copy. Expand
  4. GreckoX
    4
    Ummm... don't listen to this while driving... a soppy, droning experience - not at all what was expected from the reviews.

See all 30 User Reviews