Emily Haines: an indie quasi-celebrity. Photograph: Linda Nylind
The one band destined to break through in 2008 has got to be Metric. One listen to the Monster Hospital single should be enough for most people to understand how exceptionally good this Canadian pop band are. Monster Hospital is a synth/new wave/pop beast that name-checks Daddy Warbucks and Bobby Fuller, updating the infamous Fuller war cry of "I fought the law and the law won" to "I fought the war but the war won". It's a clever reference to some or all of these things: the political anti-war cries that have gone unheard; the fact the band left the States and went to Canada the very day that Bush was re-elected in 2004; pop culture apathy about the Iraq War; the personal battles we all face; the fight musicians often find themselves in with the music industry. Even the video sees lead singer Emily Haines held down by imaginary hands: part homage to Polanski's Repulsion (a film about one woman's battle with mental illness), part Nightmare on Elm Street-style horror-flick fun. Theirs is a beguiling and contradictory world.
Metric were originally a two-piece made up of Emily Haines and James Shaw who started in the same New York City loft scene as their roommates the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Liars. All was good until they spent a few years in major record label hell, which included Warner Brothers, London Records and Chrysalis publishing deals and sessions produced by Stephen Hague. They were being pushed in a mainstream direction. That wasn't where they were at so they packed up their bags and went back to the loft. They signed another deal with Restless Records and recorded Grow It Up and Blow Away. But bad luck hit again. Restless was bought out by Rhino and the record was put in limbo-land.
The band never gave up. Three times unlucky, they picked up two new members and began to work on their live show which is now about total rock'n'roll impact. Emily Haines is a natural frontwoman - like Karen O or Courtney Love, except she deals in pop - pop with thought and power. In 2002, Haines and Shaw went to record with their friends Broken Social Scene on You Forgot it in People, with Haines bringing an iconic vocal performance in Anthems for a 17-Year-Old Girl that cemented her indie quasi-celebrity status.
A year later, Metric finally released Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? - a disco rock monster which I loved. Metric had the keys to the past and knew how to use them. This wasn't some retrofied love affair with the past - the band understood how to tune in to the inspirations and simply turn out one electric blast of pure pop after another. The second album, Live it Out, came out in 2005 and made them superstars in Canada. Recorded in the middle of winter, at night, above a bank, it saw them falling in love with guitars. Metric's manifesto of sound is easy: fun, simple, clear pop rock. But as Haines maintains, just because it's fun doesn't mean it's meaningless. Non-stop touring in 2006 (over 200 shows) gave a rock'n'roll edge to their gigs and they were picked by the Rolling Stones to open their Madison Square Gardens show.
Of course, being prolific helps. In 2006 Haines released her solo album Knives Don't Love You Back. Its boho stylings, inspired by Mary Margaret O'Hara, Neil Young and Krzysztof Komeda, revealed another facet to her talents. Knives' album cover was a tribute to her father, the Canadian poet Paul Haines and Escalator over the Hill, the album he released with Carla Bley in 1971. The subsequent 2007 EP release What Is Free to a Good Home? set a poem by her father to music.
Some worried that this solo activity marked the end of Metric. But to me, their development is how it should be: neither forced nor faked but natural. Or as Haines recounted in an interview: "There's such a love of life in that band, and one of our goals with the next record is to convey that on tape for the first time, because I don't think we've done that yet."
