Clues by Michelle Contreras

A tendril of distorted sound sucked lingering smokers and their friends back inside from The Echo’s sloped smoker’s corral. A man with a ponytail dressed like a turn of the century undertaker in his black 3-piece suit sang with distorted vocals in an unrecognizable language, and played a mysterious wind instrument while his companion—nattily dressed as The Bearded Mod—dryly manned some kind of sample board/synth on the almost pitch black stage. They are Hrair Hratchian (the undertaker) and Radwan Moumneh (the mod, a.k.a. Clues’ producer), and are called Jerusalem in My Heart. The effect was that of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer (look it up on the internets), and boy, were there some Clues believers in attendance ready to worship when JIMH noiselessly exited the stage after just one song. Former Unicorns member Alden Penner, who did most of the singing for Clues, had a contingent of shrieking fans a la Hard Day’s Night, punctuating blasting, frenetically-paced songs with shrill “We love you Aldeeeeeeeen!” choruses.

Not that there wasn’t plenty to worship. The choice of the word “blasting” as a descriptive adjective isn’t an exaggeration. One of drummer/multi-instrumentalist Lisa Gamble’s bass drum kicks actually created a tiny sonic boom strong enough to fan hair and blow air between the legs of those standing directly in its path. Clues also played an impressive game of instrumental musical chairs in which every member of the band played almost every instrument on stage.

While certain songs started out sounding a bit too familiar to some of the indie/pop/rock/garage/shoegaze salads that are already out there, they were all on the better end of that spectrum, solidly well-constructed and layered enough to perk up the ears and hold the attention of even those who appeared to be uninitiated to the Canadian indie scene cult (based on an informal post-concert poll). The songs almost invariably devolved into minutes-long, entirely satiating, foot-stomping, head banging rock-n-roll freakouts, and hey, sounding a bit like Sonic Youth may not be such a bad thing.

—Ayse Arf