Review/Photos: Metric with Band of Skulls at La Zona Rosa in Austin, TX; 12.01.2009
words by Andy Pareti
photos by Randy Cremean
In the sparkly gold world of Emily Haines and Metric, rock music can invite you to dance, and dance music can rock your socks off.
Tuesday night at La Zona Rosa, the Toronto-based foursome straddled that ever-so-precarious line between rock and dance and, for the most part, made it all work.
Starting things off was Britain’s own Band of Skulls, a group that knows without a doubt their on-stage identity and makes no apologies about it. They are a power trio, a perfect throwback to 60s bone-crushing threesomes like Blue Cheer and Cream. Backed by the John Bonham-esque freight train drumming of Matthew Hayward and led by Russell Marsden’s stoner-sludge guitar, they are to acid rock what Dungen is to psychedelia. With head spinning, drugged out versions of “Blood”, “Impossible”, and “Fires”, all off the band’s debut album Baby Darling Face Honey, Band of Skulls’s pacing, dazed and confused ass kickery provided the perfect counterweight for Metric’s split-hair precision and neon-light glow.
As someone who has seen Metric before, I am fully aware that their stage presence can provide something of an immediate shock for first-timers. Fans of the band’s slinky, seductive dance anthems like “Poster of a Girl” or “Dead Disco” may envision the group as simply a vehicle for the clear and obvious creative epicenter that is Emily Haines. And yes, when they first walk onto the stage, Haines is front and center, a sparkle-covered sprite who leads the audience in dance and provides the band’s collective voice.
But as soon as the band takes off in song, whether it be with “Poster of a Girl” or any number of cuts off their latest album, Fantasies, it becomes clear just how crucial those three dudes standing in the shadows back there really are. Especially lead guitarist James Shaw, who is versatile enough to chug away with a rhythmic backbone and also make his instrument squeal with a spider web of guitar fills, often within the same song, sharpens Haines’ dance floor fervor with a desperately needed knife’s edge.
Metric came to play on Tuesday, pulling out big guns “Help I’m Alive”, “Poster of a Girl” and “Satellite Mind” within the first quarter of the set. Haines told the crowd that she couldn’t just get them drunk because Austinites “know [their] shit”. A wise decision indeed, although despite Haines’ twitchy dance moves and smooth talking of the crowd, she was frequently shown up by her musically-superior bandmates, who elevated even the frailest of songs in Metric’s catalogue (set opener “Twilight Galaxy”, for example) to adrenaline-pumping new heights.
Metric’s musical chops put them a head’s height above the sea of drum machine-abusing electro-pop wannabes. They strike a real balance in their live shows between thuggish, brute force and hip-shaking sass. Haines was right about Austinites knowing their shit. It’s no surprise, then, that the band’s sold-out crowd went home happy.
Tuesday night at La Zona Rosa, the Toronto-based foursome straddled that ever-so-precarious line between rock and dance and, for the most part, made it all work.
Starting things off was Britain’s own Band of Skulls, a group that knows without a doubt their on-stage identity and makes no apologies about it. They are a power trio, a perfect throwback to 60s bone-crushing threesomes like Blue Cheer and Cream. Backed by the John Bonham-esque freight train drumming of Matthew Hayward and led by Russell Marsden’s stoner-sludge guitar, they are to acid rock what Dungen is to psychedelia. With head spinning, drugged out versions of “Blood”, “Impossible”, and “Fires”, all off the band’s debut album Baby Darling Face Honey, Band of Skulls’s pacing, dazed and confused ass kickery provided the perfect counterweight for Metric’s split-hair precision and neon-light glow.
As someone who has seen Metric before, I am fully aware that their stage presence can provide something of an immediate shock for first-timers. Fans of the band’s slinky, seductive dance anthems like “Poster of a Girl” or “Dead Disco” may envision the group as simply a vehicle for the clear and obvious creative epicenter that is Emily Haines. And yes, when they first walk onto the stage, Haines is front and center, a sparkle-covered sprite who leads the audience in dance and provides the band’s collective voice.
But as soon as the band takes off in song, whether it be with “Poster of a Girl” or any number of cuts off their latest album, Fantasies, it becomes clear just how crucial those three dudes standing in the shadows back there really are. Especially lead guitarist James Shaw, who is versatile enough to chug away with a rhythmic backbone and also make his instrument squeal with a spider web of guitar fills, often within the same song, sharpens Haines’ dance floor fervor with a desperately needed knife’s edge.
Metric came to play on Tuesday, pulling out big guns “Help I’m Alive”, “Poster of a Girl” and “Satellite Mind” within the first quarter of the set. Haines told the crowd that she couldn’t just get them drunk because Austinites “know [their] shit”. A wise decision indeed, although despite Haines’ twitchy dance moves and smooth talking of the crowd, she was frequently shown up by her musically-superior bandmates, who elevated even the frailest of songs in Metric’s catalogue (set opener “Twilight Galaxy”, for example) to adrenaline-pumping new heights.Metric’s musical chops put them a head’s height above the sea of drum machine-abusing electro-pop wannabes. They strike a real balance in their live shows between thuggish, brute force and hip-shaking sass. Haines was right about Austinites knowing their shit. It’s no surprise, then, that the band’s sold-out crowd went home happy.
