Besnard Lakes Channel Led Zeppelin On New Album

It took Montreal's The Besnard Lakes two years to start recording the follow-up to their Polaris Music Prize-short listed The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse. Frontman Jace Lasek was in musician purgatory for nearly every minute of that stretch.

Shortly after the Besnards released Dark Horse, Lasek installed a new mixing console in his Breakglass Studio — one that was once used to record Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti.

Lasek, who records and produces for a number of bands, had to watch group after group filter their music through that console before he and his bandmates finally got a chance to do the same in 2009.

"It's a really special thing," he says. "People sometimes come by the studio just to get their picture taken beside it. Sometimes I lean back and think, 'John Bonham may have had his elbow resting on the same part of the console that my elbow's resting on right now.' I had been chomping at the bit to put some music of our own down through that console."

For The Besnard Lakes, the arrival of the new hardware couldn't have been more timely. For their new disc, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, the four-piece — which includes bassist Olga Goreas, guitarist Richard White and drummer Kevin Laing — were looking to depart from the slightly more pop leanings they explored on Dark Horse.

"I think we were trying to make a rock album this time," says Lasek. "This album is definitely more guitar heavy than it has been in the past."

The first step in that process, was almost completely removing strings and horns from the equation.

"I think this time we wanted to open up some space to make room for more guitar work," Lasek says. "Also, that stuff kind of depends on how the songs play out. This time, it just didn't feel like we needed [strings and horns] to be as prominent as [they were] on the last record.

"We don't really do much rehearsing. We just sort of show up in the studio... with ideas and different songs, and kind of arrange the whole thing in the studio, because we have the luxury of doing that. That way, we're able to see and hear the song as it gets constructed, and we can move it around and change it. Our pre-production ends up becoming our production."

The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night hits stores on March 9.

You can see The Besnard Lakes here:

March 11 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern (CMW)
March 12 Montreal, QC @ Il Motore
March 18-20 Austin, TX @ South By Southwest Music Festival
March 25 Liverpool, England @ Liverpool Academy 2
March 26 Bristol, England @ Arnolfini
March 27 Leeds, England @ Cockpit
March 28 Glasgow, Scotland @ Captain's Rest
March 29 Manchester, England @ Dulcimer
March 30 Birmingham, England @ Hare And Hounds
March 31 London, England @ Cargo
April 1 Groningen, Netherlands @ Vera
April 2 Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
April 3 Antwerp, Belgium @ TBA
April 4 Hamburg, Germany @ Logo
April 6 Oslo, Norway @ Cafe Mono
April 7 Stockholm, Sweden @ Debaser
April 8 Malmo, Sweden @ Debaser
April 9 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Loppen
April 11 Berlin, Germany @ Magnet
April 12 Munich, Germany @ 59:1
April 13 Basel, Switzerland @ Sudhaus
April 14 Neuchatel, Switzerland @ Case A Chocs
April 15 Nice, Paris @ Theatre Lino Ventura
April 16 Marseille, France @ Poste A Galene
April 17 Bordeaux, France @ Saint Ex
April 19 Paris, France @ Bus Palladium