Since their 2004 debut Le Compte Complet, Malajube have become a household name in the world of francophone indie rock. The singles off their sophomore album Trompe L’Oeil got heavy radio airplay, the videos were aired constantly all over Musique Plus (French Canadian MTV) and some of their songs even appeared in cellphone commercials. Basically these lads found themselves in quite a comfortable position for a band with such an INDIE sound. Blurred-out vocals with inaudible lyrics, garage rock guitars, fuzzy keyboards, sound textures often bordering on the psychedelic. For fuck’s sake, the Pitchfork review for Trompe L’Oeil manages to name-drop Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade and Animal Collective. None of these references make a whole lot of sense, but still, the Malajube sound isn’t exactly mainstream. Thankfully frontman René Levesque, drummer Patrick Huard and the rest of the band always showed a knack for delightful pop hooks, elevating Malajube above the rest of their INDIE SCUM peers. So all of this crap brings us to the third Malajube album, Labyrinthes.
I’m gonna say this right now, this is Malajube’s Difficult Third Album. These dudes have been listening to a shitload of prog-rock and it shows. Maybe too much? UH OH. Opening track “Ursuline” gives you a good preview of things to come: it clocks in at 7 minutes and offers a bunch of rhythm changes, crazy-ass drumming, eerie piano and a “Whoa, dude” psychedelic conclusion with spaced-out harmonies, bells and backwards vocals. This isn’t the same fun-loving indie pop band that got comically taped up to walls in the video for “Le Métronome”. This stuff is SERIOUS BUSINESS. First single “Porté Disparu” puts the piano to the forefront and shows that despite their recent move to Prog-City, the guys for Malajoob can still write a hook. Really good piano-pop number with shiny guitars and a lovely, melodic chorus courtesy of lead singer Robert Charlebois. At first I was confused by the band’s decision to put out this track as the first single, but it’s really the best song on there, no questions. It’s not as instantly-catchy/loveable as “Montréal, -40°”, but it is a fine, fiiine song.
“333″ brings back the prog-rawkage of the opening track in a big way. The song starts off as your usual Malajube rocker and then settles right into an acoustic breakdown before proceeding to kick you square in the balls with ridiculously-epic riffing reminiscent of Muse. Of course the song ends with a drugged-out outro filled with dreamy surf guitars. DIG IT, SUCKA (Booker T, 2003). “Les Collemboles” delivers the goods using the same kind of premise. It starts off as a solid little song that wouldn’t feel out of place on Trompe L’Oeil and suddenly shifts right into skull-crushing prog-metal guitar annihilation. And then there’s the rest of the album… which turns out to be rather forgettable.
Despite the heroic solo tacked at the end, “Casablanca” pretty much sucks. It sounds like Malajube doing a shitty radio jingle, or cheesy elevator music, I don’t know. There’s a couple of acoustic-guitar-driven tracks near the end of the album that kind of sound like cheap Radiohead in places. In a puzzling move, the production of “Hérésie” actually highlights the lead singer’s vocals, exposing some rather-shitty lyrics in the process. With a title like “Dragon de Glace” (Ice Dragon), I expected some epic rocking shit, but the song turns out to be flat as hell. I honestly think these guys thought they could get away with putting these mediocre songs on the album by adding CRAZY GUITAR OUTROS to all of them, but yeah, they remain mediocre songs.
In the end, Labyrinthes is a solid, but uneven third effort from the French-Canadian indie rawkers. “Ursuline”, “Porté Disparu”, “333″, “Les Collemboles” are definitely keepers and show that the band can thrive outside of their usual comfort zone (catchy, radio-friendly indie pop). Despite some serious clunkers here and there, fans of the band should enjoy the album. Meanwhile, newcomers should stick to Le Compte Complet or Trompe L’Oeil.
7/10
Tags: Malajube
