Reviews
Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton
Knives Don't Have Your Back
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Add to del.ico.us.Review Date: 2006-09-20
Grief is a funny thing; it can knock you down flat or give you the strength to do more than you ever did before loss. It's what leaves you laughing and crying all at once with the memory of something gone by. It's also the fuel for Emily Haines' new album, which is a bit like grief itself -- those small bit of light that poke through the misery are what keeps you going. This melancholy effort won't have you giggling, but in the end it's sum of the scattered joyful or unexpected moments that saves it.
You can't accuse Emily Haines of not stretching herself artistically, not trying new things on. She's the electro-punk-pop frontwoman of Metric, where she gets to croon along to new-new-wave beats and shout out rock songs. She's a sweet-voiced sometimes-vocalist -- one of several -- for Canadian indie-rock supergroup Broken Social Scene, showing up on songs that require her to be both charming and heartbreaking. And now she's released Knives Don't Have Your Back as a solo artist, with assistance from The Soft Skeleton.
Haines' second solo album finds the singer in a mournful mood, having lost her father Paul Haines, a poet; many of the tracks on this album were written about his death. The songs are quiet and contemplative, based around the piano and Haines' voice, and loss permeates through the album.
Things start off well with "Our Hell," a song that brings to mind Metric's characteristic shifts in pace and tone within a track. It examines how what seems like the worst to us is really, relatively, not so bad, and the dose of perspective at the beginning serves the rest of the album well. It's a charming track that keeps you interested all the way through.
Not every song holds you so immediately, however; at times, the album is a difficult listen. Haines is grieving, and she's not going to pretend to be happy for a couple of tracks just for your sake. This isn't an album that's always made for the listener; sometimes that's to its disadvantage, and sometimes that's besides the point.
Early in the album, things get downright melancholy with "Crowd Surf Off A Cliff." After a track like that, you need a bit of a lift, a sharp lyric or two, but somewhat-plodding songs like "Detective Daughter" and "The Lottery" don't provide that. Things look up again near the end of the album with "Reading In Bed" (where Haines acknowledges that she's a bit of a downer -- "With all of this luck you've had/why are your songs so sad?") and the downright lovely closer "Winning" -- with the heartbreaking lyrics "What's bad?/What's wrong?/Make it all right/All right, it's gone, so long/We've got time, all the time/All the time" -- but the middle drags a bit.
But every time things get close to suicidal, Haines injects a bit of hope into the proceedings, though you'll sometimes have to listen closely to find it. On "The Lottery," instrumentals serve as the chorus, which is a nice touch. Haines' lyrical wit is still evident on this album, albeit in a less acerbic manner than on her releases with Metric; it's a black humour, steeped with the recognition that life's going to keep on without her -- and people are going to die no matter how much she wants to save them -- whether she likes it or not. Lines like "We're moderate/we modernize/'til our hell is a good life" in "Our Hell" and "Apartments are cages I still don't know what is permanent" in "Nothing & Nowhere" are particularly resonate. And Haines' versatile voice is always enjoyable; with lesser vocal chords, this album would have fared much worse.
Knives Don't Have Your Back is not a perfect album -- or an easy listen -- but it is a rewarding one, on the whole. It just sometimes asks a bit more than you might want to give. This isn't an album for walks downtown or dinner parties; it's one for those days when it's raining and you don't really want to get out of bed.
Score: 7.6
- Terri