The story of The Besnard Lakes begins at Besnard Lake: a spectacular yet secluded water feature in rural Saskatchewan which the Montreal group's husband and wife core, Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, visit each summer for inspiration and escape. This year the couple's campsite was surrounded for a worrying few days by forest flames, a literal ring of fire which informed the devil-may-care spirit of their exuberant fifth album. Armed with demos and memories from their trip, the pair returned to the city and entered Breakglass Studios. Co-founded by Lasek a decade ago, this popular recording facility has long been a hub for Montreal's fertile, collaborative and proudly DIY music community. The predominantly French-speaking province's economic depression birthed an ever-evolving scene that's become internationally renowned for such disparate independent avatars as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and The Arcade Fire. Unique among their furrowed brow peers, The Besnard Lakes are unafraid to marry textured, questing headphone sonics to the honeyed pleasure of radio hits past: the rapture of My Bloody Valentine entwined with the romance of Fleetwood Mac. Imagine dreamy Beach House riding Led Zeppelin dynamics, with unabashedly androgynous vocal harmonies. This melodic yet mountainous soundworld was sculpted at Breakglass, their own modest Paisley Park. Channelling their obsessions with the paranormal as well as the dark arts, "A Coliseum Complex Museum" is populated by cryptozoological creatures ("The Bray Road Beast", "Golden Lion") while also luxuriating in natural phenomena and beauty ("The Plain Moon", "Nightingale"). These themes are sincere yet good-humoured. The LP's title jokily refers to a landmark-heavy road sign spotted on tour in Texas, the varied emotional impulses within reflected by its environmentally warped artwork. "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."