MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: MALAJUBE - LA CAVERNE

Montreal's indie stars get lots of play in the Anglo world, the best example of a French-language band being played in English Canada, and even into the U.S.  Just this week it was announced this was the group's third straight disc to be nominate for the Long List by the Anglo-dominated Polaris Award jury.  The group regularly is able to tour in the States, largely because of their understandable indie rock sound.

This might change a bit because of a sonice surprise.  For La caverne, they immerse themselves into synth and dance.  Instead of simply deciding to incorporate some bouncy bass and incorporate a little disco, Malajube goes for it, and becomes a complete synth-pop dance band.  There is a concept in there, something about the caveman of today in our plastic caverns, which kind of explains the techno-modern sounds, which are at the same time retro, if you get what they mean, which I don't exactly.

Lyrically there isn't a lot more to go on, these are mostly love songs with not much to say, other than a few statements about complicated relationships, pretty general stuff and some rather bland images, but then that's part of the scene as well.  The Human League didn't have much more to say than "Don't you want me baby?".  The magic here is the music, and it is a fun, if slight album, coming in at just over a half-hour.  The use of synth is excellent, and indie fans, especially Anglos, won't have much to complain about, unless they really hate fun pop.