Metric: “Youth Without Youth”
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Metric asked a very important question in the title of their 2003 debut full length Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? But the Canadian quartet pretty much answered their own question with a fresh, new millenium take on old-school new wave.
Metric is James Shaw, Joshua Winstead, Joules Scott-Key and the incomparable Emily Haines. The band started life in 1998 when Haines met Shaw in Toronto. Within a few years they became darlings of the Canadian indie music–with ties to bands like Broken Social Scene and Stars. Their aforementioned debut earned them a Juno nomination for Best Alternative Album, and subsequent records earned similar accolades. Today they are bona fide stars and their music graces big time Hollywood soundtracks like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Haines inspired a major character in the original comic and subsequent film), Twilight: Eclipse (but we won’t hold that against them) and Cosmopolis.
Earlier this year Metric released their fifth full-length record Synthetica. The record finds the band undiminished after over a decade together, and a few stints on hiatus. Metric still excels at the kind of big, moody synth-pop and jittery, post-punk nouveau that put them on the indie rock map in the early aughts. Songs like the menacing, back-alley synth-stomper “Youth Without Youth” also prove that Haines is still one of the coolest women in rock ‘n’ roll.
And you can catch Haines and Co. this weekend at ACL Fest. Metric plays Saturday at 4:00 p.m. on the AMD stage.
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