As John Peel once famously said about the Fall, perhaps the same can apply to the Besnard Lakes? Peerlessly consistent, familiar and with a purity of vision and level of quality that is hard to rival in modern music. Except, they are not always the same. Not at all. New album The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation illustrates this perfectly. Yes, the same sound world is present; the keening, lilting vocals of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas foregrounded, but there is a lightness and optimism at play. Perhaps a somewhat disingenuous sense of hope, in a world where it is currently often in short supply.

The opening track ‘Calling Ghostly Nations’ has everything you would want from the band: the opening drone, a slow build with a warped girl group Phil Spector feel, initial vocals from Olga before Jace’s falsetto arrives. The song takes its time starting and leaving, the outro dissolving into chatter. Lyrically, it considers the history of human progress: “It’s always been something in my mind; are we evolving, or are we devolving as a society ? As much as we move forward, have we forgotten the things that are important because we’ve moved forward so fast?”. This idea has come up before, going all the way back to ‘And This Is What We Call Progress’ on 2010’s …are the Roaring Night.

In a crowded leaderboard of their own making, The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation might just be their best album yet; a strive for hope when it is needed most.