Esmerine - Lost Voices (2015)

Montréal chamber rock ensemble Esmerine return with the new full-length album Lost Voices, the most dynamic and incendiary record of the group's career, following its highly-acclaimed and Juno award-winning 2013 release Dalmak. Led by co-founders Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) on various mallet instruments and Rebecca Foon (Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Saltland) on cello, Esmerine also includes drummer/percussionist Jamie Thompson (The Unicorns, Islands, Little Scream) and multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson. The album features several tracks that are hands down among the band s most rocking, making newfound use of electric guitars (courtesy a variety of guest players) alongside the group s nucleus of marimba, strings and percussion. Esmerine also welcomes bassist Jeremi Roy (who began touring with the group in 2013) as an official member; his contrabass work adds potent low-end to the heavier jams on the new album. Lost Voices is equally notable for the appearance of Godspeed/Mt. Zion violinist Sophie Trudeau as a featured guest; her intense, incomparable string sounds/styles elevate the potency of the record s most soaring and high-octane pieces, particularly on opener The Neighbourhoods Rise , 19/14 and Hakanting . Lost Voices can fairly be called Esmerine's "rock" album, expanding upon the band's celebrated prowess at deploying structure and dynamic, balancing melodic expression against methodical restraint through a diversity of stylistic touchstones while allowing for explosive crescendos of exuberant density and maximalism that most notably distinguishes this record from previous work. Lost Voices is a deeply satisfying and evocative journey and another brilliant iteration of Esmerine's distinctive instrumental chamber rock; cerebral and visceral, controlled and volatile, and wholly cinematic in scope throughout.