David Emery OnlineMetric - Live It Out
5 December 2006
Heading up the top 10 of my list of the best albums of 2006 comes Metric’s second album, Live It Out.
I first saw Metric last year, sandwiched between the new-rave-before-new-rave-had-been-invented stylings of Test Icicles and the heavy electro-rock of DFA 1979 and even though they stuck out a bit in that bill, they were obviously something special. Their latest album, Live It Out, is a truly brilliant effort – not only is it packed with excellent songs, it’s one of the few albums that keeps up the quality over all of it’s tracks.
While the tracks are all uniformly good, there is one obvious standout; Monster Hospital. Not only is it the best song on the album, it’s one of the best songs released all year, packing supreme lyrical ability with haunting (check out the video) guitar. It showcases all of the the things that Metric so good – Emily Haines’ voice contrasts perfectly with the heavier then you expect guitar, and just when you think the song is going to lapse into something predictable, they catch you unawares with something unexpected.
Interestingly, catching them at Reading this year they were quite disappointing live – somehow the album just didn’t translate well. There was nothing technically wrong – the sound was ok, Emily was bouncing around and doing the whole audience interaction thang but for some reason it just didn’t really work. This countdown is for recorded albums not live shows, however, and it easily deserves it’s tenth place.