This Is All Yours, alt-J's sophomore studio album (out via Infectious Music on Sept 22) since 2012's An Awesome Wave has been most recently spending its time on-stage. Last night, Montreal's Metropolis saw the likes of both opener Mikki Ekko and buzz-band alt-J, that is if you were lucky enough to have scored a ticket. The crowd's energy blew away both onlookers and the Leeds-based act themselves, where at points it was hard to even hear Gwil or Joe Newman's vocals.
Naturally, the set started off with the eerie-ness of "Hunger of the Pine"'s pulsing, where the band finally revealed themselves as a billowing black sheet collapsed to the floor. alt-J then quickly transitioned into gems from An Awesome Wave, such as "Fitzpleasure", "Something Good", and "Matilda". It was all a nice throwback.
"Bloodflood" (predictably) transitioned into "Bloodflood pt.II" and then was capped off with personal favourite "The Gospel of John Hunt". Despite being predictable, it was all the same a killer few moment, as was the encore, which sported both "Nara" and "Breezeblocks", among others.
Unfortunately, the light show proved to be arguably more intricate than alt-J's live effort itself, where the band didn't feel as tight as they should have sounded, particularly with their newer material. Maybe I should have lowered my expectations after seeing This Is All Yours in its entirety on NPR? Either way, it was a bit of an anxious experience trying to mask the slopiness of the percussion with notes from the keys or guitar.
Either nobody in the crowd really noticed this, or just chose not to care, but either way, each and every onlooker was unmistakably thrilled to be there, as was I. alt-J was able to fill everyone with the jitters for an hour and a half straight, and for that, you've got to give it to them.
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