Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue (2009)

By Chris Familton

On the back of their debut album, Montreal's Plants And Animals have been nominated for two 2009 JUNO awards (best New Band and Alternative Album) which is the equivalent of Australia’s ARIA awards.

Coupled with that was a nomination for Canada's Polaris Music Prize last year and you could say they have had a meteoric rise to fame.

One that is sure to now gain them attention in other countries.

Their debut album comes as Canadian bands have been riding a wave of attention and success over the last few years.

Great albums from Arcade Fire, Feist, Broken Social Scene and Wolf Parade have all pricked up the ears of record companies and Plants And Animals scored a deal with the independent Secret City Records who have a great roster of like minded bands.

Their self- titled album sets the scene with the first track Bye Bye Bye and its soaring chorus harmonies establishing a definite 70s vibe from the outset.

Warren Spicer's voice hits the same falsetto that Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips) often uses when he wants to convey fragility in his songs.

Good Friend sways with a nostalgic lilt that bands like Midlake or The High Llamas have mastered in recent years.

The use of Beatles-esque strings and the repeated refrain "I wanna dance..." build through the song to give it a grand beauty.

Second song into the album and they have already unleashed their first epic. Baroque lushness is a feature of the sound that the trio have created on the record.

The instrumentation constantly changes in service to the song and what is needed to convey the emotion of the music. One moment they are getting ragged and raw with the lite boogie of Feedback In The Field and the next they are producing the delicate finger picked folk melodies of A L’Oree des Bois which morphs into the mournful voice of a child over a lone piano.

It is a beautifully simple moment amongst the more complex arrangements.

One particular lyric in New Kind Of Love, sums up the approach of Plants And Animals.

Spicer sings "There's a river, so we go where it goes / We get covered with dirt and rainbows" and it is that mix of light and dark, colour and shade that is the key to their sound.

They mix overt 70s pop and rock leanings with folk, psych and prog influences. All of their musical memories combine in one large orchestral fantasy world, very much represented visually by the cover artwork that features what looks like a wandering bunch of musicians and circus performers.

Mercy begins like a Fleet Foxes song before somehow effortlessly transforming into an African Highlife funk track with syncopated guitar, celebratory backing vocals and wild horns and handclaps.

Just as you think that is how the song will stay, it again shape shifts into a rock breakdown with a soaring guitar solo. It is a crazy yet brilliantly infectious song that somehow avoids straying into musical show-off territory.

Plants And Animals have set a high standard on their debut album.

It will be interesting to see if they consolidate toward particular styles from this record or whether they will continue to explore and experiment with their wild and eclectic tendencies.

Perhaps this is a time to coin a new sub genre called ‘indie fusion’ to in some way attempt to describe bands like Plants And Animals and other like minded souls such as The Dodos, Blitzen Trapper and Golden Boots.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

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