soon after graduating, emily moved to canada, met james, and the two then moved to brooklyn.  while there, they roomed with future members of yeah yeah yeahs, liars and tv on the radio.  according to james, “although this sounded like an amazing place to live, often the roommates were simply struggling to eat”.

you may know their songs "monster hospital", "gold guns girls", "police and the private" or "front row" from the tv shows grey's anatomy, csi: miami, gossip girl or zombieland.  that’s not where i know them because i don’t watch any of that tripe (not that i'm a tv snob, and not that there's anything wrong with being a tv snob).  rolling stone magazine recently announced that the metric song “black sheep” will be included in the soundtrack of michael cera's latest vehicle, the upcoming film scott pilgrim vs the world. 

frustratingly, they recorded their first album, grow up and blow away in 2001, but because of internal record label issues, it wasn’t released until 2007.  in between that time, they released two additional highly acclaimed lp’s: old world underground, where are you now? and live it out.  fantasies, their fourth lp, surfaced april 07, 2009 and was short listed for a canadian polaris music prize (album of the year).

if you can’t get enough of emily’s haunting vocals, she also performs as emily haines and the soft skeleton, which is more poignant and minimalist (usually only piano and vocals) than metric or broken social scene.  side story provided by npr: while performing a live version of "doctor blind," from her solo album knives don't have your back, emily stopped mid-song and said to the audience, "i don't want to play these anymore."  she finished the set playing more upbeat metric songs.

click here for a june 08, 2009 live set and interview recorded by kcrw for morning becomes eclectic.  click here for a june 18, 2009 9:30 club gig recorded by npr's all songs considered.  click here for a bunch of metric songs hosted on cbc's website.  click here and here for a couple of interviews. don't forget, the album cover image always links to sample songs and the band's image to their website.

check here to see if metric have any gigs scheduled near you.

as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand).  incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states.  that my friend, bites.

metric rock.

if you agree, please spread the word (about the band and this site).

jason

don't worry if you missed the fever ray profile from last week: here it is.

metric music international


justin broadbent