Malajube Bridge The Divide

Quebec's Malajube — I hazard to label them a "Montreal band" — have released the best Canadian album of 2009.

Labyrinthes is true to its name since it's a jumbled, sometimes confusing and unstructured rock album of the new century. The record isn't concerned with modern verse-chorus-verse conventions, yet it closely follows the lush rock template of a lifetime of British and American rock 'n' roll records.

Outside of Malajube's home province, the language barrier relegates them to mostly curiosity status. But just like how things have opened up around here in these final throes of the sovereignty movement in Quebec, the ROC (Rest Of Canada — an expression used by francophone artists for marketing purposes) have been surprisingly receptive to Malajube's off-kilter pop sensibilities.

Although this concert was held at a CEGEP (pre-college) theatre for a few hundred people, Malajube carried the aura and chops of a well-chiseled international product. It's hard to believe that a decade ago most Quebec bands couldn't even get a gig in France, and now we're talking about Malajube getting American media coverage and touring Europe.

With the opening notes of Labyrinthes and set-opener "Ursuline," the weird, macabre world of Malajube enveloped the small venue that was filled to the brim with hardcore fans who refused to sit in their seats. Malajube hit the stage while an ominous squid-bull-looking skull backdrop stared outward with glowing green eyes (it actually looked a lot like Peter Gabriel during his "Watcher Of The Skies" performance). They quickly rolled through new single "Porte Disparu" and "Casablanca." Those two tracks were already familiar to the excited crowd despite only being a few weeks old.

Fans appeared to be gung-ho about the new record and all its eccentricities. Labyrinthes doesn't pack the obvious radio hits of its two predecessors, but "Casablanca" concludes with a nutty, over-the-top guitar solo and "Les Collemboles" seems to hurtle itself forward at an untenable pace before just pulling back at the right moments.

Fans couldn't sing along to them quite as easily as Trompe L'Oeil and Le Compte Complet's more memorable cuts, yet they clapped along just as enthusiastically. Pre-encore set closer "Cristobald" is largely an instrumental piece, but musically it was one of their most lasting arrangements.

The truly rabid crowd responses were saved for the familiar cuts. Trompe L'Oeil remains the closest thing this young generation of Quebecois music fans has to a touchstone kind of record, and Malajube correctly saved their most electric performances for "Le Crabe" and the unhinged dual vocalizing "Fille A Plumes." Even the mellow "Etienne D'Aout" was transformed on stage into the best rock ballad the '80s never produced.

Malajube's complex material prevents them from moving around too much on stage, but the group felt pretty comfortable conversing in French with the boisterous front row. Despite the theatre set-up, the entire crowd managed to remain on their feet for the entire 90-minute set, including an extended encore featuring long-awaited performances of "Montreal -40C" and Le Compte Complet mainstays "Le Metronome" and "Le Robot Sexy."

To refer to Malajube as a Montreal band would be to cast aside their Saint-Hyacinthe and Sorel roots, or to ignore that much of Labyrinthes was made in the small town of Saint Ursule. But watching Malajube perform in Laval (think Vaughan, Surrey or New Jersey) as if they were prodigal sons returning home from a successful conquest abroad proves their cultural significance in Quebec's next Quiet Revolution, one where a francophone group can potentially have a lasting impact beyond the province's borders.