May 10, 2007

Malajube

Trompe-L’oeil

8 / 10 In Canada superb bands appear with Starbucksian regularity and Montreal’s French-shouting poppers Malajube were many people’s soup de jour at this year’s SXSW. Not unlike their maple-leaf colleagues Arcade Fire they’re wistful, but where Win Butler digs pits of despair, this fivesome fill them with bouncy balls and alcopops. The freewheeling piano-chase of ‘Le Crabe’ sounds like a warhead striking the Blue Peter studio and ‘Pâte Filo’ is a post-pop happy slap so catchy it deserves to be quarantined. Having spent GCSE French sniggering at swear words in the dictionary, we haven’t the foggiest what they’re on about, but their eccentric experimentalism means it matters not. Malajube: saying bonjour to a warped new form of indie.
Greg Cochrane

Greg Cochrane

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