Album review: Land of Talk – "Some Are Lakes"

Lots of chatter coming out of Montreal these days. With Arcade Fire on hiatus and Of Montreal not actually of Montreal, Land of Talk now generate the most noise in this ice-cold indie hotbed with dense, groove-oriented music evocative of Neil Young in all his "Ragged Glory." On "Some Are Lakes," atop layers of distortion and heavy-handed drumming, Elizabeth Powell offers up cryptic poetry about the perils of darkness in a gentle, inflection-free tone. Perhaps her singing lacks emotional resonance, or maybe the pounding rhythms simply drown her out. In this case, it lacks volume, though she does speak up on "Young Bridge." Chiming guitars and harmony galore give way to the line "There's no light underneath you," another mystery phrase that deserves a follow-up question: Is Land of Talk in fact saying anything?