The Wake

Departing from the cynical and oft-political sentiments found with her synth-riff and cross-genre band, Metric front woman and Broken Social Scene/Stars collaborator Emily Haines (together with a collection of musicians she calls The Soft Skeleton) has released a collection of tracks written between 2002 and 2006, under the title “Knives Don’t Have Your Back”. It’s hard for anyone to outdo current successes by releasing previously-made material, and Haines, unfortunately, hasn’t proven to be an exception. She has, however, made a few of the bigger alt-crowd hits in the last few years, so Knives shouldn’t be immediately dismissed.

The first three tracks on Knives start with a D on the piano, an instrument that inundates each track on the record. “Our Hell” opens the emotional gates with some of the best songwriting on Knives. We can immediately see a softer side of Haines, especially when she says “what I thought it was/it isn’t now” in the most upbeat part of the song (and also the album). The following tracks each have an element or two that separates them from the others, leaving listeners with road signs that say “you are on your way through this album,” including a declaration reading “bros before hoes/is a rule/read the guidelines,” which turns some heads in lyrical surprise (what Haines is trying to say beyond its literal meaning is up to everyone’s own interpretation). In “Reading in Bed,” Haines puts together even more of her trademark lyrics (“counting his questions in the neon light/sinking under the river/the sewer line touches the edge of the suburbs/back to the beach”), but to a greater degree than any Metric song, she puts unrelated words together in sentences that may leave a just-dumped, emotional romantic saying “that is so true!” but leaves the rest of us scratching our heads in bewilderment.

Emily Haines and The Soft Skeleton could comfort anyone in a depressed/philosophical/Metric-fan-club/whatever mood, and anyone can appreciate her beautiful voice and orchestral chord-sweeping, but the emotional simplicity of the songs on Knives fail to carry an entire album. We all best mind the radio, though: she could easily end up haunting us on the ride home.