I've heard if a city called Heaven...

I recently went to an awesome festival here in Montreal named Osheaga. It's a two-day event with lots of bands playing on 4 different stages. This year, the headliners were Coldplay, Jason Mraz, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (replaced Beastie Boys who had to cancel) and Arctic Monkeys amongst others. Needless to say, it was pretty good.

Anyways, during that weekend, I discovered a group called Beast. The groups consists of Betty Bonifassi on vocals and Jean-Phi Goncalves on instruments. Heard of their names before? Bonifassi provided the singing voices in Les Triplettes de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville in North America and Belleville Rendez-Vous in the UK) and also sang on fellow Canadian DJ Champion's song "No Heaven". On the other hand, Goncalves has worked with Lauryn Hill and Quebecer musicians such as Pierre Lapointe and Jean-Pierre Ferland.


But enough about them.. onto the music.

The festival was my first time listening to Beast and I was quite impressed by.. everything. Stage presence, music, sound, Betty Bonifassi's voice, their rapping skills (they did a "shout out" to the Beastie Boys)...

I would describe their music as electro with a mix of rock and RnB (?). I'm not sure how to describe them actually...

Anywho, Bonifassi's voice is very strong and "in your face" (in a good way). I find that there is a lot of swagger in her style of singing, which I love. Her voice is very unique and "captivating". I've been listening to their CD for a whole week now, I still love it and will keep on listening to it. As Christian Marcius said, "Beast throbs with an anger you can dance to". Amazing. You cannot not move when you listen to their music and once you know a few words, you'll find yourself singing along to their songs!

I especially like the songs: Ashtray, Mr. Hurricane, Microcyte, City and Satan.
Ok, that's almost like half of their CD!

If you haven't heard of them already, check them out!
Website
Myspace

Later!