January seems to be a great month for Canadian band The Deep Dark Woods.  Last January we wrote about their great 2011 album The Place I Left Behind.  While the song featured prominently in our post last January, the band’s beautiful song The Banks Of The Leopold Canal bears repeated listens, and Vanguard/Sugarhill Records has just released a video of the band’s performance of the song in an “Americana Session.”

As we said last year, The Deep Dark Woods delivers dark tales with pristine, gorgeous harmonies and precise piano, guitar. banjo and violin embellishments.  On The Banks Of The Leopold Canal depicts a Canadian soldier and his lament as he prepares to leave his home and love for battle in WWII.  [A little history lesson:  the battle for the Leopold Canal was part of a larger battle fought by Canadian soldiers called the Battle of the Scheldt in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands during World War II in the Fall of 1944.  By September 1944, it had become urgent for the allies to clear both banks of the Scheldt estuary in order to open the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping for their their supply lines from Normandy.   The Canadian forces suffered heavy casualties during the process, including at the Leopold Canal, where thousands died.]  Hence the song’s heavy lyrics and apparent method-acting delivery below.  Check it out.  Stunningly good.