The Besnard Lakes claim to be a dark horse. And while the cooing harmonies that open the album might seem to suggest otherwise, they quickly prove themselves to be a few shades more menacing than most of their indie rock counterparts.

While the album is drenched in the same fuzzy atmospheres that denote most dream pop, it’s marred with screeching guitars, arena-ready drum solos, and epic song structures that glean more from prog and post rock than My Bloody Valentine.

Only two of the songs are under five minutes, and one of those just barely misses the mark. While there are moments of preciousness befitting lo-fi bedroom pop, they are offset by arena-ready solos and full string treatments. Many of the tracks start off small, just a voice and acoustic guitar, before crashing into a rock symphony that deserves its own laser show.

Melding no-frills songwriting and rock anthems is nothing new in indie rock—after all, Arcade Fire exists. And with an ensemble of strings and winds augmenting the core lineup behind traded male and female lead vocalists, it’s an easy comparison to make. They’re even from Montreal! But the Besnard Lakes’ methodology is a bit hazier.

This record draws breathes deeply from many genres, but belongs to none of them. It liberally borrows elements from shoegaze without living in its lackadaisical pop sensibility. It takes cues from psychedelic rock without resigning itself to druggy aimlessness. It appropriates chamber pop’s instrumentation without restricting itself form rocking the hell out.

If you were to build a map of soundalikes, it would read more like a game of musical bingo. There are moments of Mazzy Star, early Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Neil Young, late Pink Floyd, Grizzly Bear…

But in the end, this record sounds mostly like itself. A chimera composed of so many different parts that it ends up being something entirely its own. A dark horse, if you will.