​Milk & Bone Theatre Rialto, Montreal QC, November 18

​Milk & Bone Theatre Rialto, Montreal QC, November 18
Photo: Luke Orlando
Milk & Bone played a riveting set of their pretty songs to the Rialto Theatre last night (November 18), triggering samples and playing keyboards that added noticeable heft to their compositions in the live setting. Quiet and subdued on their debut record, Little Mourning, their beats are huge in person, and their voices are, too.

Both Camille Poliquin and Laurence Lafond-Beaulne took on equal roles, each playing a synth and contributing their gorgeous vocals to their songs. They played a ukulele cover of Sufjan Stevens' "Death With Dignity" that started with impossibly pretty harmonies and ended with synth arpeggios and a snapping electronic snare. Like any good cover, they made it their own, maintaining the song's quiet, poignant beauty and remaking it as something bigger, as Stevens himself recently did with his own "Blue Bucket of Gold."

Milk & Bone make the best of their resources live, turning two performers into a hypnotic show that both stays true to and expands upon their source material. "New York," especially, sounded incredible as they wailed together and issued the song's stomping piano riffs.

Perhaps it was because they aren't used to playing a venue this size, but they shyly professed their love for Montreal while looking genuinely taken aback by the gushing adulation the crowd heaped upon them. Were they really surprised? Don't they know they deserve it?