METRIC: Shutting Up And Carrying On

After hearing and seeing the video for Synthetica's lead single "Youth Without Youth", I was not excited for METRIC's fifth full-length album, Synthetica.

“Youth Without Youth” comes off as synthetic and an almost non-earnest attempt at “being indie.” Prog-rock guitar riffs and heavy synth blended with vocalist Emily Haines’ wispy vocals are just not my idea of a good lead single.

  

Album opener "Artificial Nocturne" is moody and ambivalent, teetering between uptempo melodies and a dark message. Lines like song opener “I’m as fucked up as they come” almost make you question what you can expect from Haines and co for their fifth full-length.

METRIC at the Trocadero Theatre, 2009
copywrite Jess Dooley

It isn’t until track 4, the charming “Breathing Underwater,” that I begin to regain my faith in this album. It reaches back to the Live It Out days, where the band were all delayed guitars, fast tempos and tight instrumentation and Haines’ strongest songwriting moments.

This is not to say I want METRIC to keep making the same album.

But if I had the chance to hear the second coming of Live It Out, an album that was the quintessential woman’s coming of age album from the indie/alternative scene, I’d jump at the chance.

I think the problem with Synthetica is that there is too much experimentation and not enough direction. The (over) production of Haines’ vocals (“Lost Kitten,” “The Void”) strips the airy sweet and raw sound associated with the band and the singer.

But there are a few tracks that salvage the record.



Emily Haines, 2009
copywrite Jess Dooley



“The Void,” “Nothing But Time” and “The Wanderlust” highlight the band's knack for making the indie pop that jumpstarted their career. The album’s title track “Synthetica” has an incredible instrumental and is just fun to listen to when Haines’ lyrics are dissected—it is the perfect underdog anthem (“I’ll never let them make a loser of my soul…I’ll keep the life that I’ve got”).

“Clone” is a nice departure from the faster songs on the album and has a cathartic, relaxing feel to it.

All in all, I’d say I can wait for METRIC’s next release. Synthetic seems like we came in the middle of an extended transitional period.

For more info on the band, check out their website, Twitter and Facebook pages.

--J

MySpace Fame Never Dies.

 

Jeffree Star is hotter than most girls I know.
 
Being a staunch supporter of most "celebrities" that gained prominence via social networking sites like MySpace and Buzznet back in the mid 00's, I couldn't help but jump right in her glitter and ecstasy-filled pocket. A special-effects makeup artist turned model turned singer? She's far from your average California dream girl:

Photo credit: unknown photographer

Pink hair.

Pink lips.

Pink heels.

It's like Barbie and her Malibu Beach House met an atom bomb of profanity, makeup and hair extensions:

The most impressive thing about JStar, and her peers, is how she fashioned a simple stage name and her personality into a marketing frenzy so quickly that my prepubescent head spun. I was immediate brought into her Hello Kitty meets Club Kid world, where hard drugs, raunchy music and all night dance parties were not a thing of legend, but a lifestyle.

Basically, Jeffree Star is a lot to handle.


With the help of her vulgar, in-your-face personality and obvious no fucks given approach to life, I found myself wanting to actually play audience to her career--which is still solely based off her popularity on a website (and now, years later, it's several websites).

But after seeing her perform at the 2009 Vans Warped Tour in Camden, NJ, I found that JStar is, musically, the real deal.

She can work a crowd.

She can work a mic.

Photo credit: Tamlyn Koga (obvs since the water mark is there ;3)

And more than anything, she can write a hit or two.

The thing I appreciate most about JStar is that she has worked her tattooed little ass off, sweating it out on outdoor stages alongside veteran punk, metal and hardcore bands during Warped Tour and several of her own national tours.

She's an electronica singer with all the work ethic of any other band you'd find on the interwebs. 

Literally, if you don't respect anything else, you've got to respect this chick's hustle!

After penning various self-distributed EPs and albums, Star signed a major label deal with Akon's imprint label, KonLive (which has spawned Star's own imprint label, Popsicle) which was responsible for Lady GaGa who has certainly paved the road for a transgendered musician like Jeffree--who, to me, is the future of pop music.

Photo credit: Austin Young Photography

And as if the stars weren't already aligned for this celebutaunte, they just got a whole lot linear with the release of several tracks from her latest release, the Virginity EP: an electronic release that will make the pop and trance worlds come to their bony little knees.

Especially now that it's summer time: we need singles to dance all night to.
 
 And I mean the Katy Perry Teenage Dream-California Girls one-two punch of "this is what my entire summer will sound like!"

But will JStar deliver that?
Of course she will.
She's the queen of grime-core, trashy techno, queer pop:





Now Playing: Virginity's title track:



And the latest single, "Blow Me."

For more on this diva extraordinaire, check out: her Official music webpage, her Tumblr and Facebook pages.

--J