Metric - Grow Up and Blow Away

Metric's "Grow Up and Blow Away", is a re release of their freshman album, originally recorded in 2001, but delayed by their label at the time. This album features the songs as they were as they were then, but in a different play list.

Metric is a what most would classify as a "indie" record at its hart. I would put it more as a girl-soft-punk with some early hip-hop influence. The majority of their sound is based around lead singer Emily Haines floating, soft and delicate voice. The drums are kept steady and very driving, and help to lead the song. The keyboards - both as synthesizer and piano - provide the melody, while very textural guitars back up and fill. The bass is prominent yet not over-bearing, with a very deep sound helping to tie the drums to the keyboards and let the guitars float to the background.

Emily Haines draws on elements of every st lye of music, from the indie-pop of "Grow Up and Blow Away", to the jazzy "Parkdale", with its sharp trumpets. "On the Sly" has a typical girl rock feel, with a heavy piano basis. "Torture Me" has almost a funky, dancy feel with heavy-wah guitars and twangy bass. "Raw Sugar" starts an acoustic guitar and voice duet, and has hip-hop inspired drums. The old-skool hip-hop "The Twist" contains rap-like spoken verses, with echoing male-lead choruses. "Rock Me Now" (defiantly my favorite song), is another spoken tale with a very heavy bass-line. The seductive voice in the chorus with the sample singing "Rock me now..." is quite delicious. "Soft Rock Star" goes back to the normal indie-pop, being drum and bass driven (think "Lebonese Blonde" by Thievery Corporation from the Garden State sound track). "White Gold" is the piano-anthem that seemed to be on every album from the era, followed by "Hardwire", which is a unique track that stands like no other.

Metric should stand with anyone that's a fan of Garden State, Jazz and Blues, indie music of many varieties, techno, rock, technorock, burnt coffee, snow angles, fluffy kittens, and girls, pianos, and chilling out. Beg, borrow, steal it - I wasn't disappointed, and I doubt you will be.

Until next time (I promise to start photos soon...)

~Jon

A New Start

I'm restarting this blog, I hope to get to a point where I am happy with it and encouraged by myself and readers to keep posting.

I will be restarting, from 1, the 365 Project. I'll post a photo a day, sometimes this will be a few days at a time, but there will be one from every single date.

I might occasionally blog about my life in here, as if it is a regular blog. I doubt that I'll do that as much.

And I'm going to try and review an album a week. I'm typically going to do this from reading through some of my favorite music mags (AP, one called Rock Sound, etc) and finding fun artists I have (or preferebly, havent) heard of. I'm starting with Metric's Grow Up and Blow Away .

Have fun, I'll try to.