AJINAI at Small World Music Centre, Thursday, April 2. Rating: NNN
Eclectic concerts in hidden pockets all over the city are happening any night of the week in any genre you like, including one as specific as “Mongolian folk rock from Beijing,” which is how Ajinai describe themselves.
Promo photos show the band in traditional garb, but at the Small World Music Centre the four members wore jeans, sneakers and shirts that revealed tattoos beneath. Amps and pedal boards enhanced the feeling that we were in for something more contemporary than traditional.
But though Ajinai eased into the first of two sets by playing a number of danceable songs with driving drums, effects-driven guitar and funky bass that moved the audience from a seated to a standing position, most of the band’s Toronto debut leaned on ancient sounds.
Frontman Hugjiltu plays the morin khuur (a horsehead fiddle), which, when bowed slowly for the set’s many balladic songs, was hauntingly mournful. Add in delay, 12-string-guitar atmospherics, tsuur (a Mongolian flute played by Hugjiltu and drummer Buren Bayar) and Hugjiltu’s eerie overtone singing style and things got moody.
While the cinematic soundscapes were evocative, those expecting a dance party like those seen in Ajinai’s YouTube clips (and those glorious outfits!) – might’ve left slightly underwhelmed.
Carla Gillis
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN at Massey Hall, Wednesday, April 1. Rating: NNNN
Belle and Sebastian‘s ninth album has added some unapologetic Europop to their discography of sensitive balladry. So it was appropriate that the Scottish band’s first Toronto show in five years began with a dance routine, albeit a balletic duet to a pristine-sounding Cat With The Cream.
It was a lovely, unexpected opening to a show that mixed their stylistically varied and ambitious new material – Stevie Jackson’s charming new wave ditty Perfect Couples, Sarah Martin’s string-laden Power Of Three – with the scruffy energy of back catalogue hits.
The seven-piece band and their epic backing section (strings, horns, stand-up bass, background vocals) then launched into I’m A Cuckoo and recent single The Party Line, prompting some fans to rush to the front. They kept up the momentum with more surprises (Electronic Renaissance, La Pastie De La Bourgeoisie) and climaxed with an onstage dance party to The Boy With The Arab Strap.
Frontman Stuart Murdoch‘s wry observations about Toronto (the masculine and feminine aspects of the city’s urban geography, how TTC tokens make excellent cufflinks) added a personal touch. Like many touring bands, B&S have their go-to tricks and tracks, but they made us feel like this show was extra-special.
Kevin Ritchie
BLOODY DIAMONDS at the Bovine Sex Club, Friday, April 3. Rating: NNN
Bloody Diamonds‘ heavy riff rock floored the youngsters hovering in the sweaty Bovine on Good Friday.
The real story, hands down, is lead singer Sara Elizabeth. Few singers come close to her controlled-yet-wild dynamic. She doesn’t stray much from her main trick – an otherworldly, carefully wavering wail – but it’s effective enough not to matter.
Her voice and bewitching presence throw the band’s mostly straight-up alternative guitar rock into the shade, but Jake Seaward‘s riffs are monstrous earworms.
The Toronto-via-Halifax band pulled out all the stops and were exhausted by the end. While Elizabeth’s voice is next level, it could benefit from more wholehearted accompaniment and atmosphere.
Matt Williams
MAX GRAEF at Wrongbar, Saturday, April 4. Rating: NNNN
Berlin DJ/producer Max Graef is barely into his 20s and already developing a dedicated following for his take on laid-back soulful house. For his Toronto debut at Wrongbar, he approached his set like a DJ from a much older generation, shifting smoothly between vintage underground disco and his own productions. It takes confidence to drop jazzy tracks without heavy kick drums at peak time on a Saturday night, and he pulled it off.
Graef generally shies away from the glossy futuristic techno his hometown is known for, but his set wasn’t completely retro either. If anything, his dips into dance music history gave his own music a broader context. And he doesn’t show off on the mixing board: track selection comes before knob-twiddling.
Even though he kept the tempo relatively slow, the energy on the dance floor was consistently high. The club might not have been packed, but you can be sure anyone who caught him will be coming back next time.
Benjamin Boles
ELECTRIC WIZARD at Lee’s Palace, Sunday, April 5. Rating: NNNNN
Electric Wizard‘s Jus Oborn sings about the world burning and nuclear warheads ready to strike and being nothing and its being time-to-die o’clock. He does it while digging into the heaviest, deepest, loudest, riffiest riffs like an excavator hollowing out the earth’s crust, the world collapsing beneath him.
The English band hasn’t toured North America in over a decade. In that time they’ve gone from stoner-doom cult oddity to one of the most formidable names in heavy metal, basically by releasing the same album of bone-rattling doomsday riffage over and over. Their set featured hits from genre classic Dopethrone, 2007’s Witchcult Today and their new record, Time To Die, all sounding similar but powerful.
It’s not about the abiding intensity, but the way it builds, swirls, consumes and destroys. By the time they closed with a searing run-through of Funeralopolis that shook the foundations of the packed-out Lee’s Palace and jangled the skeleton of everyone in it, Electric Wizard’s rep as “the heaviest band in the universe” was certified. This is metal at its heaviest and doomiest. Music to watch the world burn to. Music to die to. Music to be nothing to.
John Semley
