A band’s label is a prime credibility indicator for the active music listener. There are people who’ll buy an album just because it’s been released on Secretly Canadian or Sub Pop, the labels for Suuns and Handsome Furs, respectively. The ambassadors for these two labels combined forces for a powerful show in front of a packed crowd at the Echoplex Friday night as part of the “Not Safe for Work” tour.

Montreal’s anomalous North American experience has produced a bevy of musical groups, including Suuns (pronounced ‘soons’) and Handsome Furs. While these groups sound very much ‘American’, the curious distinction of coming from the largest non-English speaking city in North America provides for a more continental sound. Suuns, however, sounds little like other groups making music at the moment. A little bit Muse, a little bit early Clinic, the comparisons are abound as they always are, but Suuns is a unique live band. Their layers of vocal and instrumental effects are delay core fantasy on paper, but they don’t sound like most delay core bands. The writhing, twisted lyric delivery is quite macabre, but Suuns are goth in sensibility as opposed to sound.

The levels were perfect for Suuns. They seem like the type of band that’s oftentimes mixed too loud, so I’m led to believe that they have a strong sense of how they should sound live. Suuns will have no trouble increasing their following is they continue on with performances as charged as Friday night’s. Be sure to give their debut album, Zeroes QC, a spin if you haven’t already.

I was a big Wolf Parade fan from the point that they released their first EPs. I still prefer the more electronic version of “Modern World” to the stripped-down Isaac Brock-produced version on Apologies To The Queen Mary, one of the most hyped and critically acclaimed albums of the past ten years. Additionally, I preferred Dan Boeckner to Spencer Krug, if only by a hair – ‘We Built Another World’, ‘Shine A Light’, ‘Fine Young Cannibals’ and ‘Ghost Pressure’, all Boeckner’s , rank among my favorite Wolf Parade songs. They also put on a fantastic live show when I saw them at the Beachland Ballroom in November, 2008.

It was always unfortunate that the ‘indie supergroup’ status of Wolf Parade kept them from achieving self-actualization. Now that the group is on ‘indefinite hiatus’, we’ll have to remain content with Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown, Krug’s conception, who also put on a hell of a show back in 2006 (@ Beachland Tavern.)

While I still regret not having seen Wolf Parade a second time, I left the concert Friday knowing that Handsome Furs is a project to be judged independently, on its own merits. Boeckner and wife Alexei Perry are very much in love as their chemistry radiated throughout the performance. Perry’s acrobatics kept the crowd energized as well. While I would’ve like to see Boeckner pick up the guitar a few more times, Spoon’s Britt Daniel took the stage for an awesome encore, possibly setting the stage for the birth of another supergroup. Contributed by Chris Gedos

Rating: 8.22