Montreal’s jangly indie rock stalwarts, Corridor, took the Petit Theatre audience on a wild ride of hazy introspection on Friday night. The four-piece jammed countless tracks from their latest LP, Mimi, and drew out moments of uninterrupted sound, putting us all in a sense of uneasy seclusion. If I had to equate it, it felt like staring directly into the sun and just letting it all go. Labyrinthine vocals and endless riffing repetitions, the ouroboros consuming itself in real time.
The four-piece, made up of vocalist and bassist Dominic Berthiaume, guitarist Julian Perreault, guitarist and vocalist Jonathan Robert and drummer Julien Bakvis, with the addition of multi-instrumentalist Samuel Gougoux live, has never been tighter. Even during the truly chaotic moments of noise and guitar wankery, Berthiaume would give Robert a little nod, and the group would suck it all back in.
This band is 11 years old, and their live performance shows it. We had to give a bit of props to the visuals, created, of course, by the projection wizard himself, Anthony Piazza. During “Jump Cut,” for example, visuals of track and field high jumps morphed with dollar bills and a strange eye exam. It just fit the vibe of the song. Corridor’s music has always been psychedelic, but the visuals truly opened up the third eye. When the lights came up, there was that particular quiet that follows a good gut-punch of a show—when the applause takes a second too long to start because everyone’s still somewhere else. Corridor have found the pocket between pure chaos and rehearsed bliss.
