Live Review: Montaigne

Montaigne has gone from strength to strength over the past year, garnering a lot of praise for her debut EP Life Of Montaigne and her impressive live performances. Her gig at Goodgod in Sydney was no different as Montaigne powered through a mixed set of favourites and unreleased newbies from her upcoming debut album.

Playing to a packed hometown audience to promote her latest single Clip My Wings, the growth of confidence in her live show, even in comparison to just a few months ago when she was supporting Asta, was palpable. Montaigne has definitely mastered performing the five tracks on her EP, effortlessly gliding through arguably lesser known songs like the stirring Pontius Of The Past with the same sureness as her big hits I Am Not An End and I'm A Fantastic Wreck and her go-to cover of Sia's Chandelier — one of the best covers of the past few years, spine-tingling every time.

The audience tonight was privy to a handful of unreleased tracks, potentially from her upcoming debut album. One song was an uptempo, vigorous piece with a simple yet stunningly effective repetitive piano riff that really excited the crowd despite Montaigne's modest (and unfounded) comments about her rusty piano skills. The warm-hearted and infectious What You Mean To Me was also another highlight, and a frontrunner for first single off the new album. Unfortunately there seemed to be a few sound issues in the venue through What You Mean To Me until the end of the set that took away from the quality of the performance, however it's testament to Montaigne's voice that she can still sound good competing with high-pitched ringing.

Montaigne has developed a talent for creating beautiful songs with surging, emotional crescendos and has spent the last year performing them to near perfection. Her song Clip My Wings gave us a hint of movement in other directions musically, while the new songs she performed tonight really showed a greater scope of influences and styles. She is an exciting musician to watch out for, and tonight's performance showed that as a musician and as a performer, Montaigne is just getting stronger.