In the future it may or may not be brought back to life again, but for now it will simply remain online as an archive of the artists and albums we’ve covered during our relatively short time online.

Fantasies album cover.

There’s a lot to be said for female-fronted bands these days. Most of them attempt to emulate Hayley Williams and her success with Paramore, utilizing the basic pop/rock sound and adding a subtle twist. Canadian new-wave rock band Metric has never found themselves in this state of mind; they’ve always been bold and experimental in a very controlled and clever way. It’s technically been close to four years since Metric has put out anything new (2007’s Grow Up and Blow Away was a re-issue), but the time is close at hand. Fantasies, Metric’s fourth studio album, is due out on April 7, 2009. Thanks to an early leak, the entire album was put up for streaming on their Myspace, and I highly recommend that you take a listen.

Fantasies begins with the gripping first single, “Help I’m Alive,” which features spine-chilling melody lines coated with striking lyrics like “Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer? / Help! I’m alive! / My heart keeps beating like a hammer.” It’s brilliant, engaging, mysterious, and catchy; all at once. The production is especially appreciable; everything from the vocals to the guitars to the percussion. If you need some kind of sample, go ahead and get this song. It’s the key to unlocking the genius in the rest of the album.

Other album highlights include the spacey groove, “Satellite Mind,” the intriguing “Twilight Galaxy,” and the synth-driven “Gold Guns Girls.” “Satellite Mind” is my favorite of the trio, employing heavy tones and decisively choppy melody segments. “Twilight Galaxy” revolves around subtle vocal dynamics, while “Gold Guns Girls” explores urgent declaration and synthy callousness. Second track “Sick Muse” also is a stand-out, featuring earnest lyricism on a dark sound palette. Lines like “All the blonds are fantasies” and “Watch out, Cupid stuck me with a sickness / Pull your little arrows out and let me live my life” are just a few of the piercing phrases lead vocalist Emily Haines passionately expresses here. Plus, the melodies are all grade A here, and that doesn’t hurt in the least.

Mid-album track “Gimme Sympathy” feels like a confession in musical transit, setting diary-like monologue to persistent percussion. “After all of this is gone / Who would you rather be / The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” asks Haines bravely. It’s definitely a little poppy, but not generically or negatively. It’s just cautiously upbeat, if you will.

Metric's Fantasies earns a perfect score.

The remaining tracks are also intelligently composed, melodically satisfying, and engagingly fresh. Everything from the entracing “Collect Call” to the solemn “Blindness” constructs a fantasic completeness that involves and re-involves the album as a whole. The production is also note-worthy; synths are well-supported, the percussion is full of rich textures, and the vocals are sharp and smooth.

Fantasies is ultimately a victory for Metric. The songs themselves, the track-to-track consistancy, and the endless innovation all play a lead role in making the album a success. It’s noticeably darker than past Metric records, but this is easily a sign of maturity in this instance. Hands down, one of the best of 2009 so far.

Born and raised in England, McRae started his journey towards becoming a prolific singer/songwriter by singing in a church choir and borrowing his mother’s guitar, and boy are we happy he did. In 2000 he released his first album, which was self-titled, and it received critical acclaim from important media outlets such as Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. Featuring amazing songs such as the opening track You Cut Her Hair and the closing duo of Sao Paulo Rain and I Ain’t Scared of Lightning unified Tom McRae’s name with intelligent lyrics and moving melodies.

Album art for Just Like Blood

In 2003 he was ready with the follow-up, Just Like Blood, which eventually went one to reach one of the biggest milestones possible for any album regardless of type and genre; it became one of my personal favourite albums of all time. OK, so that piece of self-appreciation was a little uncalled for, but the point I was trying to make is that it is one amazing piece of music. Starting out with the dripping sounds of A Day Like To Day, the album is chock-full of songs that are perfectly suited for those days when you are feeling a little introspective and just want to be left alone.

The album simply doesn’t have any weak spot, and each song is, on account of the lyrics and comforting vocals, more moving than the next. Or at least up until you reach the peak, which is tracks number six and seven, Walking 2 Hawaii and Mermaid Blues respectively. The former opens with the brilliant line ” Falling feels like flying / until you hit the ground / And everything is beautiful / until you look around ” and eventually ends up as a lesson on coming to terms with the end of the world, while the latter is a tale of unconditional love as shown by the line ” I’d swim with you until my lungs give out / I can raise you from the deep / or drown with you in doubt “.

It isn’t just the lyrics and the amazing vocals that will capture you however. The experimental scope of sound on the album serves as the brush and colours that paint a picture in your mind, and you’ll have no problems visualizing the dark blue, icy landscapes of Mermaid Blues, or the orange, burning hot horizon Walking 2 Hawaii wants to portray.

And while both All Maps Welcome (2005) and King of Cards (2007) are great albums in their own rights, I feel that they miss that element of experimental magnificence and cocky self-centredness that made Just Like Blood absolutely fantastic. Though to be fair, the difference in sound, which arguably points towards both musical and personal progression, is enough to say that these albums are in a completely different genre compared to their predecessor. Additionally the fact that he practically wrote a song for me, For the Restless, on All Maps Welcome is almost alone enough to make it my favourite. I just can’t imagine that the line ” For the restless, not the peaceful sleeper / This song’s for you / And for the faithless, not the true believer / This song’s for you ” applies as strongly to anyone else as it does to me. Or perhaps it applies to everyone at some point?

Regardless of what might be your cup of tea, I would like to encourage you to give Tom McRae’s discography, because I am certain that you will find something that tastes just the way you prefer you tea. Visit Tom’s MySpace profile to listen to a couple of his tracks, and also make sure to subscribe to his semi-frequently updated blog, McRaetheism, which makes for a good read!

Album art for Enemy Mine by Swan Lake

When it comes to supergroups, which are all the rage at the moment, Canadian Swan Lake might not be the most widely known, but let there be no doubt about the fact that they are truly one. With a cast of Carey Mercer, Daniel Bejar and Spencer Krug respectively known from bands such as Frog Eyes, The New Pornographers and Wolf Parade, it is no surprise that these guys generated a lot of buzz around their first release together, Beast Moans. Now they are ready with the follow-up, and you can listen to three of the songs inside!

Enemy Mine is scheduled to be released on March 24th, but you can listen through the entire album within minutes if you pre-order it, as you will be given instant access to a digital download of the album. Compared to their debut album, the band state that they have taken a different approach, with a focus on more collaborative songwriting, resulting in a more coherent album. Courtesy of the band’s label, Jagjaguwar, we can now offer you a chance to preview three of the songs from the album.

A Hand at Dusk

Album art for Either/Or by Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith. Just thinking about the name is enough to inflict me with a serious and seemingly uncurable case of writer’s block. Since the day this blog was started I have wanted to write about his music, but at the same time I find it to be so almighty and divine that I simply feel that I can never find words that adequately describe just how much it means to me.

In an attempt to overcome this mental block I have decided to take a stab at what was the late Mr. Smith’s third full-length release as a solo artist, Either/Or. Released in February of 1997, it was this album coupled with the success of Miss Misery, an original song he created for the film Good Will Hunting that resulted in an Oscar nomination, that really sent him in to the spotlight that he seemingly dreaded so much.

The title of the album is derived from a book with the same name by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, and one could easily draw a parallel between the themes of the philosopher’s writings Elliott Smith’s lyrics on this album; They both existentialism, despair and death. While some might argue that this was Elliott’s natural state of mind and writing, it goes beyond any sort of doubt that his alcohol and drug abuse certainly influenced his writing. At one point he was even cited in an interview with Spin Magazine saying that he had no recollection of writing the song Cupid’s Trick (as he was under the influence), and therefore had absolutely no idea of what he was thinking about when he wrote it.

Getting on to actually examining the album, as we usually do in these type of articles, it starts off in a typical Elliott Smith fashion with Speed Trials. Soft and soothing vocals carry the song forth accompanied by a classic guitar and drums, and at the end it seemingly unnoticeably slips into track number two, Alameda. This song features a richer and fuller sound, complete with backing vocals, as well as a stronger focus on lyrics. The lines ” Nobody broke your heart / You broke your own, ’cause you can’t finish what you start ” serve as a perfect description of something most of us have probably experienced at a point in our lives: Letting our emotional inhibitions and fears of being hurt dominate us to the extent where we miss out on opportunities as a result of it.

Ballad of Big Nothing, the third track, might seem strangely optimistic for a song off of Either/Or if you simply listen to the chorus: ” You can do what you want to / Whenever you want to / There’s no one to stop you “, but as you start examining the verses and discover lines such as “Getting into the back of a car / for candy for some stranger ” it becomes clear that even in his most optimistic times, the negative and depressingly skewed world-view was never very distant for Smith.

The same type of bitter-sweet optimism is also present in Between the Bars, which serves as a perfect example of one of Elliott Smith’s most impressive traits as a songwriter. There is more often than not a duality present in his lyrics that means that the lyrics can be interpreted individually based on the listener’s experiences. While some see Between the bars as a sad, but romantic lovestory about two people who want to forget their troubles, others see it as a recollection of alcoholism and addiction.

Track number five, Pictures of Me, is one of the many highlights of the album. It’s more upbeat, fast-paced and catchy than the rest of the tunes, and such it easily stands out. Lyrically it seems to center around Smith’s inhibitions towards fame and celebrity, as illustrated by the lines ” So sick and tired of all these pictures of me ” and ” Everybody’s dying just to get the disease “.

Elliott Smith performing at a live concert in 1997

While up until now the album has mostly consisted of a string of pearls and highlights, the middle part slows down a little, consisting of some of the more forgettable songs such as No Name No. 5, Rose Parade and Punch and Judy. Don’t get me wrong, stand-alone these are solid songs, and they certainly give a solid contribution to the overall quality of the album, but they are merely less memorable and mesmerizing than many of the other songs.

Angeles however, which is the ninth song of the album, has nothing forgettable about it. And while taste is subjective and highly personal, many people like to cite this as one of the most beautiful songs ever made, and that is saying something. From the velvet soft vocals to the subtle guitar and the captivating lyrics, this song towers as an example of how you don’t need to bring the orchestra to create something that borders to perfection.

We’ve already touched in on Cupid’s Trick earlier, and while it is close to impossible to say anything concrete about what the lyrical theme centers around, it is musically one of the more daring songs of the album with rougher guitars and heavier percussion. 

Even though 2:45 AM ends on a relatively dark note, Elliott takes it down a couple of notches for the last two songs, the aforementioned and Say Yes. The first is an intense and low-voiced confrontation of sorts, while the latter is a straight love-story, Elliott Smith style of course where you are left wondering whether or not it ends on a happy note.

Now if I throughout this review of sorts haven’t expressed myself clearly enough, I am going to reiterate by summing up the point I have been trying to get across in a way that cannot be misunderstood: If you have yet to check out the works of Elliott Smith, set aside some alone time for yourself and just immerse yourself in his music. It will be an experience that you’ll cherish forever and one that you’ll wish you had treated yourself to sooner!

To close off this article I have created a short video that will give you an introduction to Elliott Smith and his music. It features the song Between the Bars off of Either/Or, and it serves as an introduction for everyone who wants to know more about this amazing songwriter. Watch it below:

Album art for Mean Everything To Nothing

As we are closing in on the release date for Manchester Orchestra’s sophomore album, Mean Everything To Nothing (April 21st), the band are taking an aggressive approach in order to promote themselves. Leading up to the release, the band will release release new videos for each and every song from the album. Yesterday saw the release of the first called The Only One. Watch it and read about the vinyl pre-order deal they are running for the new album inside!

The videos will be released exclusively on various music sites around the web, in the same order of sequence as the album’s track listing. Naturally then the first video is for the opening track The Only One, and it premiered yesterday over at AbsolutePunk. You can watch it below:

Also revealed today was a sweet vinyl pre-order deal  that they are running over at Amazon. For under $20 dollars you can purchase the album on vinyl, and receive a bonus CD with your purchase as well. Of course it doesn’t actually mention anything about what the bonus CD actually contains, and whether it is actually just the album in CD format as well. Our investigators are on the case, and we will let you know once we find out!

Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (and Chickenfoot)

Adam Schlesinger (of Fountains of Wayne), James Iha (of Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle), Taylor Hanson (of Hanson.. yes, that Hanson), and Bun E. Carlos (of Cheap Trick), collectively known as the newly formed Tinted Windows, are set to release their first full-length album on April 21, 2009. The lead single from the album, “Kind of a Girl,” became available digitally on February 24, and is up for streaming on their myspace. The band has already prepared to perform live on the David Letterman Show the night before their album releases.

If you have information regarding other musical “supergroups,” feel free to leave some feedback below. We’ll keep you up-to-date as more details surface.