Ohbijou — Beacons

Ohbijou's sophomore full-length release, Beacons, serves as a perfect compliment to 2006's Swift Feet For Troubling Times.

Their beautiful indie folk continues to maintain its understated delicacy through gentle tracks and a hushed anxiety. Layers of ukeleles, violins, soft guitars and pianos weave themselves into a tight basket of reflection and poetry. Tracks like "New Years" and "Black Ice" are standouts, as everything seems to be most cohesive and intense here, showing how powerful subtlety can be.

Beacons sounds impressively unified, despite being recorded at various studios across Canada from Muldrew Lake in Gravenhurst, Ont. to the Banff Centre in Alberta. Casey Mecija's wispy vocals and gentle prose act as just two variables in the beauty that is this musical equation. Gentle horns add another shining level that shows development for the band.

This is a wintery, sleepy record in the warmest of ways and definitely a record to write home about.

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