Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton - Knives Don't Have Your Back

Genre rock Publisher Last Gang Records External Links Official Emily Haines Website Official Last Gang Records Website

Over the last three-and-a-half years, Emily Haines has grown from being just another obscure singer-songwriter, vocalist with Stars, and the voice behind Broken Social Scene's "Anthems For a 17 Year Old Girl", to being one of the most recognizable female faces in indie rock. Her band Metric has enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity in the wake of its second album Live it Out, especially in Canada, to the point where 1,000 capacity venues can no longer hold the band's perpetually growing audience. Eighteen months after confronting and converting boisterous, aggressive crowds across Canada opening for screamo band Billy Talent, Haines and Metric found itself playing four consecutive sold-out shows in Toronto, as well as a massive show in Edmonton, Alberta, which drew a stunning 8,000 fans. Thanks to such terrific singles as "Dead Disco", "Monster Hospital", and "Poster of a Girl", whose videos focus on the charismatic, photogenic Haines, the energetic, miniskirt-sporting singer finds herself an unlikely star: unlikely, because for once, we have a female artist who has earned fame and respect through nothing but hard work, terrific live shows, and fantastic songs.

Several years in the making, carefully written and recorded during Metric's rapid ascent, Haines's solo debut Knives Don't Have Your Back serves as a sedate, stark contrast to Live it Out's tetchy, guitar-centric style, one that's a lot more intimate, but every bit as witty, enigmatic, and biting as Metric's music. Most importantly, though, despite the rather humble official title "Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton", aside from minimal guest appearances from various musicians (including several of her Metric mates and fellow Broken Social Scenesters), this record belongs to Haines, and Haines alone.

Haines's skills as a pianist were hinted at on the previous two Metric records, but we learn just how accomplished she is on her solo disc, her notes and chords very sparse, the warm, cozy production allowing each struck note to breathe. Coupled with Haines's girlish but tough voice, which has always been sumptuous, it's easy to lose one's self as she coos away over her often gentle arrangements. In a recent interview, Haines stated that she liked to return home from tours to play her piano in the dark, and that's exactly what Knives Don't Have Your Back sounds like.

"With all the luck you've had/Why are your songs so sad?" she sings on the morosely beautiful "Reading in Bed". While Haines's lyrics remain tough to pin down at times, one has to wonder if the line is self-referential. Still, introspective as several of the songs may seem, this is hardly a typical "confessional" album, as Haines deftly veils her observations with the same kind of poetic vagaries that her father, Paul Haines, became known for. "Our Hell" is the closest to sounding like something Metric would record, the piano the most insistent on the album, underscored by lightly thrumming bass and subtle percussion, disillusionment steadily creeping into the song ("What I thought it was it isn't now"). "Doctor Blind" takes the languorous sound Radiohead popularized a decade ago and runs with it, Haines's seductive voice packing a wallop, while the dreamlike "Crowd Surf Off a Cliff" is devastating as she intones, "Rather give the world away than wake up lonely."

Both Neil Young and frat boys take it on the chin on the snarky "The Maid Needs a Maid"; Haines has always been one to confront anyone foolish enough to make snide remarks during Metric shows, and she is absolutely biting here: "Your breasts heave when you sing/Your mouth should be working for me for free." Meanwhile, she sings enigmatically of "sexual suicide" in the wake of the 60s women's liberation movement on the sweeping, country-tinged "The Lottery", which ends with the memorable line, "It's impossible/Like girls in stilettos trying to run."

The lullaby-like "Winning" ends the album on a reassuring note, and while it's not exactly an uplifting resolution, Haines does offer us the tiniest glimmer of hope as her voice suddenly, gently lilts, "We'll make it alright." Far from the most immediate piece of work, the superbly designed album is still an easy one to like, one that doesn't pander to audiences by overdoing the feminine weepiness, instead giving us music that's classy, poetic, tough as nails at times, but ultimately tender and heartfelt. It's another side of Emily Haines we can't help but want to experience more in the years to come.