Live It Out

Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?	Grow Up and Blow Away	Knives Don't Have Your Back	The Reminder Feist is the solo project of Canada's Leslie Feist, a prolific artist who has also played in one capacity or another with Broken Social Scene, Kings of Convenience and half a dozen other bands. The Reminder, her third release, comes from the same well of quiet, appealing songwrit...	What Is Free to a Good Home? A companion piece to Knives Don't Have Your Back, this EP consists of five new songs and a remix. The mellow trumpets opening "Rowboat" signify that this is not the detached new-wave-inspired rock of Metric or the sprawling experimentation of Broken Social Scene. The album is lar...
Metric: Live at Metropolis	Set Yourself on Fire Sure they look pretty and sound pretty and all, but is this Montreal-based quartet ever going to amount to much, you know in the course of "rock history"? Very likely, if their captivating third album, Set Yourself on Fire, is any indication. Vocalists Amy Millan and Torquil Camp...	Neon Bible For their second full-length, the Montreal-based seven-or-eight-piece Arcade Fire show themselves capable of Big Rock, as original, and as potentially marquee-topping as TV on the Radio and Sigur Ros. Regardless, the intentional murkiness of these pleasantly anthemic New Wave dir...	Third Portishead's Third has been a long time coming, the result of a lengthy creative torpor following 1997's dark, distinctly underrated album Portishead. Importantly, though, they've shaken it. While the core trio of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley remains, this is quit...	In Rainbows Pink Bowl 6 1/8"

ephemeral
With "Empty" (the opening track) playing in the car, I found myself satisfied with my purchase. It's pretty. It's clever. How I love to give in. And it suddenly explodes into something different. It's a very cool opener. There are a half-dozen highly quotable and clever lines throughout Live It Out, but the songs never feel as interesting as the first track because they don't venture away from themselves as "Empty" did. The repetitious lyrics succeed in making Live It Out easy to listen to straight-through in the first sitting, but have the side-effect of drastically reducing its replayability / lasting appeal / the thing that makes truly great albums great. I can't listen to it all the way through any more, and I've only listened to it all the way about three times now. That's very low replayability for me- usually I get nine listens out of a good-but-easy-to-digest album. This just didn't keep me interested. There are points during Live It Out when I feel like I may as well have bought an album by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Emily Haines (Metric's vocalist) has a solo project that sounds very different from this, but I get the impression from the myspace page that the songs retain the same type of writing. That is- take a few clever but vague lines, insert them into typical pop song structure, and fin!- a new song thats as easy to get bored with as it was to create.

4.5; They just keep getting better...
It's always nice when you latch onto a band like Metric or Stars. They make memorable, hard rocking music without feeling a sense of generic-isms; a band that just sounds way too polished for its own good that radio will adore but it leaves your brain just as quickly. With their 3rd release (1st album was re-released recently...too many re's there), the band just keeps getting better and able to blend their new-age influences and rocking rhythms rather than one overpowering the other. Empty: Starts out nice and slow before heavy guitars kick in and it just becomes a very groove-based track that's great to headbang too (it's fun to do vocalist Emily Haines' head movements which go sideways rather than vertically). 9.5/10 Glass Ceiling: One of the more enjoyable tracks on the album with a catchy main riff and the chorus being a nice quick sing-along. It just sounds like a fun track to listen to and tap your foot to. Only problem is it's slightly repetitive. 8/10 Handshakes: Even though there's a lot of elements to like about this one such as the fast-paced main riff, it doesn't really take off. Not that it's a bad track and you probably wouldn't skip over it but aside from a few things, it's hard to keep it in your head. 7/10 Too Little Too Late: After a long guitar riff, we get into a mid-tempo number with Emily's sexy vocals harmonizing with each other before it goes into a beautiful chorus which is mainly thanks to the guitar line underneath. Not really a pop hit but it's just a very enjoyable track to listen to. 8.5/10 Poster of a Girl: Some songs are just way too catchy for their own good. Everything from its ungodly catchy synth line to the guitar line played before it to Emily's sexy-as-hell repeating of the song's lyrics in French, it's an obvious highlight. 9.5/10 Monster Hospital: Very indie rock and loud and full of energy with a Clash-inspired chorus yet...I don't like it that much. Strange huh? It doesn't do anything wrong really and many love it and it was obviously a single but it's one of those songs where you're the odd man out. 7/10 Patriarch on a Vespa: Great beat although like Handshakes, it might be one of those tracks you like but probably won't go back to much. It's got its heavy guitars, Emily's vocals and good rhythm bass/drums-wise. Chorus and its noise solo saves it. Come to think of it: I like the song. 7.5/10 The Police and the Private: More catchy synth arpeggios and great interplay between it and the guitar. It's a great example of them building a kind of atmosphere without going completely nutso a la Empty or Monster Hospital. Album standout. 9/10 Ending Start: Kind of a weird song. Piano-based at its start with Emily harmonizing with a weird male voice with swirls going around all over the place. It's a nice sounding if off-kilter track but it's kind of missing a memorable hook to rope you in. 7/10 Live it Out: I love Emily's vocals at the start and when you think it'll be another ambience piece, it kicks up and rocks hard. Might not be a catchy sing along song but its rhythmic beat sets it apart and maybe not an ideal closer, it's certainly a good rocker. 8/10 It's too bad female fronted bands tend to be known more for its vocalist than anything. Everyone knows Emily just as everyone knows Amy Millan from Stars or Hayley Williams for Paramore but the band here does a great job at being a band and luckily, they come up with great records like this one.

I'm an addict
I hate indie bands, and I hate Canadians. But I LOOOOVEEEE Metric. Go figure.

Not Old World, and definitely not Grow Up and Blow Away. Different band. Different sound.
Can't agree more with the only negative reviewer for this record. It seems as Emily and company abandoned most of their melodic beauty that made Grow Up and Blow Away, and Old World Underground... so freakin' special in the first place. The second and third tracks on this album are basically grating.. in the most annoying way (especially the third, that yelling she does over and over). To compare this album to something by the Yeah Yeah Yeah's is definitely on the right track... what I loved most about Metric's sound initially was their all-over-the-map music, while keeping melody and high-quality songwriting intact. The band, on Live It Out, decides that they're more concerned with "rocking out" than writing high-quality, timeless songs. There's nothing wrong with rocking out, but when you compare their previous works with this latest... it's insanely disappointing. The quality of the songs has definitely dropped, which is why I can only give this record three stars instead of five like the first two. I am grateful that Emily has a solo record... it's damn good and to me, it's the direction that Metric should have gone toward. I do still love Emily's lyrics... but again, these songs just "rock", they don't send shivers down my spine like the ones on Grow Up and Old World (especially Grow Up...) Maybe Metric's live shows weren't attracting audiences until they started rocking out more, with live drums as opposed to electronic trip-hop-influenced loops... maybe they needed more simple, noisy guitars to get people moving at shows... shame that that takes priority over heartbreaking piano parts and insanely catchy melodies. Again, I'm glad Emily made that solo record. Metric, go back to your roots. Longtime fans have missed you.

Dizzying!
Bought this record based on a quick recommendation from a friend--she thought I might like it (and she doesn't know my musical tastes all that well, either!), and she was RIGHT. Great thing to put in the player when cooking and cleaning, or for yelling out in the car. Bouncy, fresh, bright, disco-esque, quicktime. Even my husband is recommending LIVE IT OUT to pals, and he's anti-disco. I don't like to cheapen this group by likening them to ELASTICA, but the qualities in Elastica's tunes that I like are the same for METRIC. Fearless bass, tricky beats, uncommon lyrics, and those magical female vocals. Not one bummer tune in the bunch. Snatch it up!