"We chose a path that was our own," Metric lead singer Emily Haines told the crowd at Rams Head Live towards the end of their set last night, referencing both the group's unique sound and the unconventional way that they release their music.
The Canadian band consists of Haines, Joules Scott-Key, Joshua Star and Joshua Winstead and was formed in 1998. They self-released their second-to-last album, Fantasies, becoming the only group to release a Top-20 hit without a label backing them. Their newest album, Synthetica, was also released on the band's own label.
Metric has a tight, synth-pop sound that compliments Haines' dominant voice and impressive range, which is why it made perfect sense for the concert to start with another group that completely revolves around a strong female voice and is off the beaten path, Misterwives.
The newly formed indie-pop group from New York is relatively unknown outside of the city, but will probably break out on to the music scene once they release their first EP. Lead singer Mandy Lee has an extremely powerful and unique voice that makes you want to keep listening and even her tambourine had a spunky touch to it. Once the band writes a few more songs, they will be perfectly capable of headlining their own concert.
Rams Head was pretty crowded while Misterwives was performing, but it became absolutely jam-packed once Metric took the stage, making it impossible to move at all on the floor. The group made an interesting choice by deciding to basically play the entire first half of Synthetica, allowing the entire audience to experience the soul of their album from the very first words "I'm just as f**ked up as they say."
During this part of the set, Haines barely said anything to the audience and focused on conveying the emotions of the album, which is pretty much about staying true to herself. Strobe lights flashed throughout the concert, which at some points added to the geometric design of the set and intricate guitar rifts. However, the constant flashing lights were distracting at some points, overshadowing the band's sound and even making it hard to see Scott-Key, the drummer.
Metric sang a few of their older songs, such as "Help I'm Alive," and then started in on the second half of the album with "Synthetica" and "Clone." They then went back to the song they'd skipped from the first half of Synthetica, hit "Breathing Underwater." Since this song has been played on the radio a ton, it was one of the only songs that the entire crowd sang together.
Haines took advantage of this synergy to finally address the crowd, telling them that Baltimore is an "interesting" town and explaining how happy the band was to have gotten so much radio play. While she was not extremely emotive, she told the crowd that "I just wanted to send you the love, it's all in the words," which made it completely okay that she hadn't interacted that much with the crowd.
The band finished up the set with "Sick Muse" and "Dead Disco." It was obvious that they were going to come back on stage, though, since they hadn't sung "Gimme Sympathy" yet.
They started their encore with "Gold Guns Girls" and then two of the band members stepped off stage, leaving Haines with just a guitar to accompany her on her favorite part of every concert. She told the crowd, "Everything is so f**king complicated and then ... it's just music" before starting a stripped down version of "Gimme Sympathy." If the strobe lights would have worked for any song, it would have been "Gimme Sympathy," with its complicated, fast rhythms.
But it was so much better with no lights, a simple beat and the entire crowd singing "We're so close, to something better left unknown"
