Out of an atmospheric drone and mod-rock-style guitar picking comes an explosion of electricity and drums that climaxes with a questionable, haphazard guitar solo and a vocal bridge that promotes the virtues of being an island. It’s “Empty,” the opening track and one of several uneasy songs that pepper Nü Wave band Metric’s sophomore long-player Live It Out, an album that, with songs like “The Police & the Private,” with its subtle electronic shimmer, dishes out paranoia aplenty in the age of the Patriot Act: “Keep one eye on the door, keep one eye on the bag/Never expect to be sure who you’re working for,” frontwoman Emily Haines (of Broken Social Scene) sings. Most of Live It Out is flat-out filler (“Too Little Too Late,” “Monster Hospital”), but it’s okay padding for the album’s real meat and potatoes, the feminist “Patriarch on a Vespa,” which counts the literal horrors of domestic complacency (“comparison shopping,” “biological wrist watches,” and “pretty little pillows on floral couches” among them) and the propulsive, ominous “Poster of a Girl” (with French spoken-word interludes—always a bonus!). Think of Metric as a poppier Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Breeders and think of Live It Out as another step toward indie-pop splendor.
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