The Album Leaf

After braving throngs of jubilant Habs fans in the streets celebrating their team’s thrilling series win over Washington, not to mention university students drunkenly reveling in the end of final exams, fans packed into Lee’s Palace for a rare Toronto performance by San Diego’s The Album Leaf. While I missed openers Sea Wolf, I still managed to get there as the band was setting up their L.E.D. wands, and a bevy of instruments (enough to put a small record store out of business). The Album Leaf is a five-piece band, formed by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Jimmy LaValle, who used to play in numerous San Diego-based hardcore punk bands. They have been making ambient post-rock with elements of electronica since the late 90s, though despite being featured in a few commercials and numerous episodes of The O.C., they still remain relatively unknown to most casual post-rock listeners (those who started listening to Explosions In the Sky only after their songs were used in Friday Night Lights, etc.).

Touring in support of their latest album, A Chorus of Storytellers (released this past February on Sub Pop), the band wasted little time talking as they delved into a mixture of new and older material. Listening to an Album Leaf record is like listening to the soundtrack to the greatest movie never made. LaValle and Co. have played and recorded with Sigur Ros in the past, and it isn’t hard to hear the influence the Icelandic band has had on their music.  Simultaneously ambient and cinematic, with crescendos building to powerful finishes (many of the new songs feature violin and trumpet solos), you don’t listen to the band’s songs to dance around the room to, you listen to them to relax to at night.  Until tonight, I’d never seen such a blissful and transfixed crowd at Lee’s – a testament to how calming the band’s (mostly) instrumental music is.  After telling a humorous story about the band’s earlier border troubles due to certain members’ previous records (which include a D.U.I., minor possession, and a charge for buying illegal fireworks), the band played a three-song encore, which included standouts “Always For You” and “Red-Eye” from the band’s 2006 album Into the Blue Again. It was a perfect ending to a great night of music – what more could you ask for to kick off the summer?

For more The Album Leaf,
Website: http://www.thealbumleaf.com