Winterlvst @ Théâtre Sainte-Catherine Café Bar▪

While it felt like everyone in the know of the Montreal music scene was trying to crowd into Angine de Poitrine on April 3rd, I was on a different mission. I had other shows to shoot, and one of them was the album release party of Awakening by Winterlvst. Just down the road from Club Soda, where the Angine de Poitrine crowd was insane, Winterlvst was tucked into Theatre Sainte-Catherine Cafe Bar, and it provided a unique cozy environment for this dark synthwave release.

If it’s your first time hearing about this band, it’s not entirely your fault. This band was announced silently about 2 weeks before the show, with this show being confirmed shortly after. This “new” project has been in the works in the background for 10 years, and it is fronted by Morgan Lander (famously from nu-metal standouts Kittie), and supported by Johnathon Lefrançois-Leduc on dual keyboards and Justine Ethier on drums (both from Blackguard). Of the four sets I ran into on Friday night, this was the one that I was most excited to witness, as it was new and unknown as a stage act.

Before even entering the stage area, I was greeted by some of the rest of Blackguard, as they had shown up to support their friends. Trying to get past the front bar, I was warmly greeted by my friend Paul Zinay (singer for Blackguard), who was chatting with Lander and Terry Deschenes (guitar for Blackguard). After getting through the crowd of musicians that I knew, it was a small crowd of supporters that I largely didn’t know, other than running into Dave, Paul’s identical twin brother. Before I had arrived (I was shooting a cover band at Piranha Bar called Roxic), Martine Bourque had read passages from her book that she had for sale in the venue. The crowd was milling around in excitement to hear the new act.

This was the first performance for Winterlvst, but with the three professional musicians involved, each with decades of experience, the show didn’t have any hesitation to launch confidently into brand new material. The show started with the customary dimming of the lights, but this time, I saw the light technician wave a remote to turn on the electric candles that made up the stage dressing. There were blinds hiding the dual keyboards from view, and the blind for Ethier’s drums mainly left the electric toms and cymbals in view of the crowd. It was different to see the electric kit versus the normal acoustic kit that I’ve known Ethier to play.

When the band took the stage, they were all covered in cloaks with hoods raised. The hoods remained in place the entire time for Ethier and Lafrançois-Leduc, but Lander’s hood was off almost immediately into starting How Long. A single spotlight held a consistent light on Lander the entire show, with the lights around the rest of the stage changing throughout, and even having some fog envelope the two instruments that made up the majority of the stage.

The second song was Broken Lines, and it was the first track that was released by the band, so it held immediate recognition, even while my brain was swathed with ideas for pictures around the unfamiliar venue. Of note through this set was the effort to maintain an atmosphere. No introduction of songs, just a smooth flow between each song until the end of the 25-minute set.

We took a quick picture of the band at the end, but it was quickly back to a very comfortable social setting after, with no one in a rush to leave the bar, except probably me running back to Piranha Bar to catch my friends in Vinyl Hero on the top floor perform while downstairs the Wacken Metal Battle for the provincial level wrapped up. Spoiler: BornBroken won and are on to the national competition.

I’m excited to see where this act has the possibility to go, especially after the premiere performance. Morgan Lander’s clean vocals have just as good quality as the harsh vocals she is known for through Kittie. The songs can leave an emotional resonance, and while this exploration is different from Kittie or Blackguard, the pedigree doesn’t dissolve what has been written here. I’d love to see a build-up of more to the stage show, as one song that wasn’t performed from the album has a guitar solo.