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Saints preserve us
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by ERIK LEIJON A largely untrue legend has it the namesake of Malajube frontman Julien Mineau’s current place of residence, the Mauricie town of St. Ursula, was a young maiden heading from England to Rome with a contingent of 11,000 virgins, only to be slaughtered and beheaded by Huns along the way. Labyrinthes, Malajube’s highly anticipated follow-up to 2006’s smash success at home and surprising hit abroad, Trompe l’Oeil, opens with a song dedicated to the poor, canonized woman and appropriately sets the tone for an album that’s musically lively yet thematically morbid. “It’s a strange story. It involves virgins, murders and religion,” Mineau laughs. “We decided to make the song an interaction between old myth and modern day—[“Ursuline”] is about a girl today confiding in Saint Ursula.” Both reporter and subject have a difficult time coming up with a more hotly anticipated francophone album release in 2009 than Malajube’s Labyrinthes. The likelihood of a more traditional purveyor of the Quebec chanson outselling them is high, but the highly poppy yet experimental Trompe l’Oeil received a shocking amount of acclaim from tastemaking media outside of Quebec, in one fell swoop opening a new world for young franco rock artists. “[Since Trompe l’Oeil], we’ve learned a lot about the job of being musicians,” says Mineau, whose group spent all of 2008 working on Labyrinthes. “We toured Europe four or five times, played a dozen times in Germany, Sweden and even visited Japan. We know now there are no limits to what we can do and we’ll keep playing shows wherever. But we also feel more like employees now. Granted, it’s like we work for ourselves, but it has become a business and there are other people working on our success too.” If Trompe l’Oeil was Malajube’s make-or-break album, career-wise, then Labyrinthes feels like a record with a bit of breathing room, as if the group knows this won’t be their last musical endeavour regardless of how it’s received. The result is less of a traditional record but “more like a book, with chapters,” says Mineau, who figures there isn’t one sure-fire single in the bunch. “It’s an album about aging—in the big sense.” The subject matter is largely dark and the vocals are hidden behind a few layers of harmonizing, although Mineau contends the band still has a pretty keen sense of humour when it comes to blending unconventional music styles. “If we add Gregorian chants,” he says, “it’s because we think it’s funny.” With the Malajube media machine now in full motion, Mineau and his bandmates have been keenly reading the blogosphere’s first impressions of Labyrinthes, and they’re surprised at the difference of opinions on the anglo and franco sides. The anglophone listeners who perhaps considered Trompe l’Oeil to be a bit of a novelty have been largely praising how the new album is similar to its sunny, lively and eclectic predecessor. On the franco side, where one could suggest they carry the weight of an entire generation of young, British-influenced Québécois artists, expectations are slightly higher. “Some francophone blogs say Labyrinthes sounds completely different [from Trompe l’Oeil]. In general, the anglophone blogs have been very positive while I’ve noticed a few negative reviews already on francophone blogs. Then again, there are still a lot more francophone blogs talking about us, so it’s not too dramatic.” AT LA TULIPE ON TUESDAY AND |
