M For Montreal: Thursday

11/21/08 4:54pm

by Erik Leijon (CHARTattack)

MONTREAL — British, European and American festival bookers and media have congregated in Montreal for the third straight year to figuratively poke and prod at the best bands the city has to offer in the hopes of finding the next big thing at M For Montreal.

Truthfully, the city still has many great bands that have yet to be discovered, but the well has been pretty much tapped in terms of veritable blue-chippers. If the mandate is to pick 12 entirely new acts every year to play rigid 30-minute sets, then it's not surprising that M For Montreal organizers have cherry-picked a few unheralded Toronto acts to round out this year's roster.

The showcase setting works well for haggard industry types, since the herded sheep format of the show (patrons alternate between the Just For Laughs Cabaret's two stages every 30 minutes) limits venue-hopping and maintains a brisk pace. International media and local music fans who bought tickets find the experience to be both educational and enjoyable.

For grouchy local music journalists, catching Duchess Says for the hundredth time likely won't yield any new thoughts on the group. But it can be fun to see normally confident bands look slightly nervous and jittery in front of some very important spectators. If the stories concerning some of last year's losing bands are correct, the groups really take M For Montreal — and an opportunity to play Brighton, England's Great Escape Festival — very seriously.

Francophone hard punk rockers Les Dales Hawerchuk kicked off night one of three after being introduced as "the best rock band in Quebec." They're a simple 4-4 band named after the Hall Of Fame NHLer (whose name sounds even funnier with a french accent) featuring a John Belushi look-alike named Sylvain Seguin who comedically egged on the audience while the group played some ferocious, aggressive rock. Compared to last year's big rock acts, Krief and Priestess, the Hawerchuks fared better as a less serious alternative. British media looking for a ballsy, late '70s punk era-type attitude were fairly impressed. If only they knew what "tabarnack" meant.

Repping what was dubbed "T For Toronto," Hogtown five-piece Sweet Thing started what one can only hope will be a long period of detente between Canada's biggest cities. With a much bigger pool from which to cull bands, it's not surprising the Toronto selections were very professional-sounding.

Sweet Thing emphasize incredibly poppy tunes with a more guitar-driven slant. The rousing choruses and harmonizing at times made too-obvious stabs at making edgeless, hooky pop music. But the dual lead guitar work of Nick Rose and Alex Last impressed, and vest-clad lead singer Owen Carrier extended Toronto's awkward, long-legged vocalist tradition started by Blue Peter in the early '80s.

Nature-sampling hip-hop/electronic/southern spiritual multimedia group The National Parcs are the perfect group for a city where everyone has art degrees and enjoys indoor concerts. Playing on a muddy field in England might not work to The National Parcs' strengths, though.

The group — who started as a Freeworm project and evolved into a trio — require their music to be accompanied by video footage of the band members running amok in nature. It played here on a big screen in the small venue, and their undeniably catchy, soulful Timbervision album worked well in a live setting. But the multimedia experience that makes this group so special might be lost on a bigger scale.

The members of Montreal synth quintet Pas Chic Chic have impressive local pedigrees, and a professional-sounding post-rock group should appeal to British delegates. Unfortunately, the show was marred with early sound troubles and their darker, moodier arrangements didn't mesh well with their more energetic peers. Similar to goth trip-hoppers Elsiane last year, Pas Chic Chic were victims of not being well-suited for the showcase format.

Toronto's second contribution of the night were Lioness, who packed DFA 1979-style beats with the aggressive, passionate vocals of Vanessa Fischer. While sounding similar to Skunk Anansie's female singer Skin, the indie rock rhythm section surprisingly meshed quite well. They were also more punk than funk, which was a good thing.

If British bookmakers bothered to place odds on this year's contest, Montreal noise-punkers Duchess Says would likely have been favourites. It's taken a few years to refine their sound, but 2008 saw them release one of the city's most exciting records, Anthologie Des 3 Perchoirs, and reaffirm their place as one of Montreal's most chaotic live acts. But lead singer Annie-Claude Deschenes' destruction of the stage and multiple crowd excursions took away from the group's solid synth-driven riffs and pounding rhythm section.

After having awarded the M For Montreal prize to We Are Wolves last year, the delegates may not want to give the prize to a similar group. That — along with the start of the afterparty — may have explained why the second floor of the Cabaret section of the venue slowly emptied out halfway through Duchess Says' set.