On one of the first warm spring nights of the year, a dark, heavy wave of electronic post-rock crashed over Montreal’s Theatre Beanfield. The crowd packed in as anticipation for the show grew palpable. It was a double first for both bands on the bill, as neither one had ever played the city before. Longtime fans knew they were in for something special, and when the lights finally descended, the audience gave both bands a warm Montreal welcome.
The Italian three-piece JoyCut were first to take the stage. Founding member Pasquale Pezzillo was accompanied by percussionists Gaël Califano and Matilde Benvenuti. Pezzillo uses a piano-synth mix to lay a sonic groundwork rife with imaginings. It’s joined, and sometimes driven, by dueling drum beats that speak back and forth in harmony. The band can produce a sound as full as an orchestra and cinematic enough that you can practically see an adventure brewing before your very eyes. With each member bathed in a strobe of light, Pezzillo himself exudes focus. There is little said, as he moves from keyboard to synth to guitar to microphone with calm intent. Sitting hunched over, surrounded by droning, dystopian synths, his soft piano cuts through the ambient soundscapes. The decision to leave most of their songs without vocals creates an invitation to the audience to craft their own stories to accompany the moodiness.
During a handful of tracks, the building tension feels like it could rupture across the room at any moment but instead is tempered down, reinvented, and pieced back together again differently. Like an automated city building itself up, tearing itself down, then building anew. The band uses a plethora of tools to achieve its distinctive sound, such as chimes and tribal drums, and when Pezzillo’s howling vocals do come in, they resemble that of a banshee wandering through the unforgiving night. During their last song, both percussionists raise their arms to the sky in unison as they deliver the final pounding blow, and when the fuzz finally fades out, the crowd flares in reception. In a brief moment of emotion, Pezzillo places both hands over his heart, looks out to the audience, and takes in their love. He bows his head, thanks the crowd, and claps back to them.
Our headliner, the London-based trip-hop-turned-electronica post-rock collective Archive, was next to take the stage. For over three decades, Archive has been a revolving door of artists and musicians alike. Originally formed by keyboardist/programmer Darius Keeler and Danny Griffiths in 1994, the band has morphed over the years, taking steps in new directions toward a progressive rock sound. With this in mind, their entrance felt emblematic as member after member slowly made their way to their instruments. One by one, the band introduced themselves sonically as the near 20-minute opener Lights began.
This rotating cast became a running theme throughout the night, as members would appear and disappear again, sometimes even bouncing between roles mid-song. This was the case for Lisa Mottram, who carried out both vocal and keyboard duties. Archive’s other two vocalists, Dave Pen and Pollard Berrier, also rotated roles on guitar throughout the night and delivered astounding layers of sonic density. Keeler, who’s responsible for a handful of instruments, continued to bring energy through the show as he pumped his free hand to the beat and even found himself dancing wildly across the stage. Steve “Smiley” Barnard kept the rhythm section thumping through the night, with Mike Hurcombe next to him providing additional guitar tone. All together, Archive’s wall of sound and impressive ability to loop and layer with one another led to an audio delight.
The audience resonated with the performance and showed a lot of love to the band, sometimes even erupting at the recognition of songs only a handful of notes in. The band skillfully navigated the highs and lows of their extensive catalogue, recognizing exactly when to turn things down or let the chaos reign openly. Archive knows that the soft-spoken emotional moments in tracks like So Far From Losing You are just as important as the big, loud choruses found in Bullets, and their frantic playing, mixed with their catchy melodies, left the room feeling properly well rocked.
With thirteen albums now under their belt, and songs often running on the long side, it’s fair to say that choosing a setlist that would satisfy all their fans was no easy task. Still, they managed to fit eleven masterfully arranged tracks into the set time and concluded with a near 25-minute encore. As the performance began to wrap up, Pen spoke to the crowd, thanking them for their support. He dedicated the final song, Fuck U, to the “rotten hateful people in places of power.” He exclaimed, “We want love, we want love, we want love,” and proceeded to deliver a furious and cathartic shredding performance that ended with the crowd in cheerful uproar.
In the end, all the members of Archive returned to the stage and took their final bow as the crowd exploded once more. It was a night that saw fans spanning multiple decades come together in appreciation for a band perhaps seldom seen but always felt.
Review & photos – Simon Wellwood
