In the days when Bryan Adams bestrode the charts, Canadian music was a credibility free zone. So much so that the Dears' frontman Murray Lightburn left for London, clutching a demo and hoping to encounter Blur's Graham Coxon.

With Canada now cool again due to Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene, his own Montreal band are reaping the rewards of not following the obvious path. Not least because they are fronted by a Jewish-named black man who can sing like a soul man but grew up worshipping Morrissey.

With the entire band in black and illuminated by red searchlights, it's like watching a twilight funeral as Lightburn, flanked by singing female keyboard players, weaves his spell. Although the Dears are loosely like a cross between the Smiths, Joy Division and Roxy Music, the music has an almost operatic, classical quality. It's thrilling to encounter a band with the confidence in their own vision, who can just wait for people to follow. Their Gang of Losers album aligns them with the world's misfits, and the growing army of Dears fans cling to lyrics like You and I on the outside of it all.

However, Lightburn is an outsider who has an awareness of showbiz. He hurls a tambourine into the crowd and grabs a Flying V guitar for solos normally heard in hairier bands who sing about bats. He sings about racist hatred (in Whites only Party) but couches his words in a tune so pretty it could be sung by grannies. Enigmatic to the last, he promises to see us again "in another life" before grabbing a melodica for Postcard from Purgatory's hypnotic dub.

Given that his hero Morrissey pronounced that "all reggae is 'vile'", it's a typical act of defiance from someone determined to be his own man.