A spanner in the works

Thanks and no thanks to Ken for insisting I listen to The Besnard Lakes.

Thanks because the three tracks on their MySpace site - and the warped Arcade-Fire-meets-Beach-Boys psychedelia of 'Disaster' and the choral stoner bliss of 'Devastation' in particular - are very, very good indeed. No great surprise, given that they hail from Montreal. Anyway, you know me too well, sir.

No thanks because, as someone like Ken who busies himself around this time of year by formulating lists, the possibility that there might be an album out there - The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse - that might waltz into my Top Ten if only I'd heard it is profoundly troubling...

A firm believer that recommendations should be passed on, I promptly urged my friend Gareth to give them a listen, and he's now a convert too. He deserved a good turn, in any case, after loaning me a clutch of albums at the weekend which also have a chance of sneaking into the Top Ten at the last minute: the self-titled Shocking Pinks record, Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam and in particular Asobi Seksu's Citrus - now regretting missing them last month even more...

Probably shouldn't admit this, but I haven't yet got or even heard a copy of In Rainbows...