It's been quite a while since Montreal's Plants and Animals last visited Vancouver, and with a new album The Jungle out at the end of 2020, we were due for a return. So I was pretty happy to see they would be doing just that, with a show at the Fox Cabaret.

I arrived just as opener Gus Englehorn was finishing up his set, but it wasn't long before Plants and Animals hit the stage, launching right into ”Faerie Dance”. Starting soft and building with an explosive energy, the song was a microcosm of the rest of the set, which ebbed and flowed with chill songs like ”Love That Boy” to the harder hitting ”Sacrifice” to the dense and swirling “Le Queens”.

With a strict curfew in place, the band didn't say much, singer Warren Spicer just taking to the mic a couple times to affirm how grateful they were to be there (and how he was happy with the Vancouver crowd not yelling at him & his haircut, unlike another city he did not name).

Other highlights included the simmering chaos of one of my favourites, “Feedback in the Field”, the title track from the new album “The Jungle”, and the raucous “House on Fire” which ended off the main set.

But they were quickly back for one more song, as they ran right up to 10pm with a fitting finale, the last song off The Jungle, “Bold”.

Even though they played for a little over an hour, the set still felt too short, and I definitely could have listened to the band’s lush sounds all night (thanks a lot, curfewed shows). And hopefully it won’t be as long of a stretch between their next show here.

setlist
Faerie Dance
We Were One
All Of The Time
Sacrifice
Love That Boy
The Jungle
Le Queens
Get My Mind
Feedback in the Field
In Your Eyes
House on Fire
(encore)
Bold