Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings

Even after several weeks of listening to this thing, I still don’t feel like I’ve truly got a handle on it. Prepare to immerse yourself in order to tap into its mysteries. Thankfully there are abundant rewards to be found amid the surges of widescreen sound.

It would be disingenuous to say the Besnards had been on a downswing prior to this, but in wrestling with mortality they tap into a well of vital energy that makes the group appear revitalized and full of vigor.

Thunderstorm Warnings doesn't put a foot wrong, delivering the big music with heart instead of bluster. [Mar 2021, p.90]

An astonishing return, up there with their best records to date. [Feb 2021, p.18]

It’s an evocative thrill ride and a captivating rumination on mortality that also asks questions of life afterwards. It isn’t an easy listen but it’ll soon become something you’re drawn towards time and time again.

The ride is smooth enough that you never quite feel the acceleration of the vehicle.

The Besnard Lakes might test the listener’s patience at times, but their commendable commitment to monumental scale and ambition often results in something thrillingly beautiful.

The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings will assuredly be a favorite for longtime fans but may be a bit daunting for first timers and is not for the casual listener. However, for those willing to put in the time listening to the whole album, the payoff will be worth it in the end.

Thunderstorm Warnings takes everything the Besnard Lakes have ever done well and provides it in abundance. There's nothing here that they haven't done before, but no one else has ever come close to encroaching on the band's niche of colliding intrepid Rush and King Crimson-style prog with the atmosphere of Montreal's storied post-rock scene, so why change now?