The Besnard Lakes Return with 'A Coliseum Complex Museum' LP, Premiere New Track

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Oct 14, 2015

Two years on from issuing their Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO album, Montreal psych-rock act the Besnard Lakes have announced they'll have a new album landing next year. Their A Coliseum Complex Museum arrives January 22 via Outside (Jagjaguwar in the U.S.); a 12-inch vinyl single behind album track "Golden Lion" comes out on November 13.

A press release notes that the band have gone through a few changes since their last album. Founders Jace Lasek (vocals/guitar) and Olga Goreas (vocals/bass) still lead the group, but the roster pairs them and longtime drummer Kevin Laing with recently added keyboardist Sheenah Ko and guitarist Robbie Macarthur. Richard White played guitar on the LP, but he's no longer touring with the Besnard Lakes.

Despite the internal changes, the act are still said to deliver "luscious vocal harmonies, dense guitar-work and classic '70s melodicism." The recordings took place at Lasek's own Breakglass Studio in Montreal, with the results said to bring together the sounds of Beach House and Led Zeppelin.

You can get a taste of what's to come via a stream of "Golden Lion," a distortion-soaked rumination on a dark and stormy night that will appear both on the album and as the A-side to the 12-inch single release due next month. The single also comes with a couple of exclusive B-sides. You can check it out below, along with a new video clip of the Besnard Lakes performing the track live as a 17-piece band at last month's Pop Montreal festival.

Up above, you'll find the slightly supernatural outdoor setting that serves as A Coliseum Complex Museum's artwork.

"For a long time we were trying to keep secret that we love being out in nature, because it's kinda cliché," Lasek said in a statement of the cover art's direction. "But with this record we decided to stop fighting what we love so much. So the front cover actually has a lake on it, but it's also got this giant orb shooting light into the water, which is creating a hole that's opening a portal to the coliseum complex museum. It's kinda fucked."

You'll find tracklistings to the "Golden Lion" 12-inch and the new Besnard Lakes album down below.

A Coliseum Complex Museum:

1. The Bray Road Beast 
2. Golden Lion
3. Pressure of Our Plans
4. Towers Sent Her to Sheets of Sound
5. The Plain Moon
6. Necronomicon
7. Nightingale
8. Tungsten 4: The Refugee

Golden Lion 12-inch:

1. Golden Lion
2. The Motorway
3. In The Forest

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