Canadian bands know what's up!

Hey everyone, how’s your week been? It’s gotten awfully cold lately, at least here in Toronto. Winter hasn't even begun and for your readers outside of Canada, some of you probably would never want to experience a Canadian winter. Just trying to set the spotlight on Canada for a bit before I introduce this week’s (yet again) Canadian band, blog post and guitar cover to go along with it…  Metric is one of Canada’s best known modern bands and have caught the attention of many fans from all over the world. I first heard of this band years ago when they put out their song ‘Monster Hospital’ back in 2005. I was not too fond of the band from hearing the one song but I decided to give them a chance and had a listen to a few of their other ones and followed their progression here and there throughout the years. Once I discovered their song ‘Combat Rock’, which happened to be an older song of theirs actually, I began to get hooked to their sound. I think I've just got some luck of discovering a song that I am not a fan of as the first one by every band.

Metric can be best described as an alternative band where electronica plays a very large role in their sound. It is not the type of electronica that people might associate with the present happenings of the electronic dance music scene but instead very limited synths that are just enough to give their music that extra kick. Their music is simple in nature, at least on their albums. I have seen them play in concert a couple of times and they tend to add more to their live show. The drums in most of their songs tend to follow a very steady beat with not too many fillings; it really serves its primary purpose of keeping their songs on track and not to be too distracting. In many of their songs, the guitar serves the purpose of maintaining the rhythm while the synths take the role of providing the melodies. The bass stands out in their songs because the guitar focuses more on the higher register to compliment the synth. This gives their songs a very groovy feel that tends to make you want to move more to the bass lines rather than anything else. Finally, Emily Haines is a phenomenal vocalist. She is criticized for her live performance since she alters the way she projects the song but in my opinion that just adds more to the uniqueness of the band. Listening to an identical replication of the studio version of a song might be remarkable but at the same time can be boring.

The song I have chosen to cover by them is their single ‘Gold Guns Girls’ off of their Fantasies album put out in 2009. This song stands out to me because it has more of an edgier feel than their other songs. The tone of the guitar has a bit of a vintage sound that really appeals to me. The bass really drives the song throughout the verses and into the chorus. The main guitar riff of the song that starts it off and is played in the backing of the chorus is simply an open A note played out followed by an octave up. The verses and bridge of the song follow a F, G and Am chord progression while the choruses follow a Am, F and G progression. That’s pretty much the entire song stripped down to a simple format.

I might start putting up more covers without writing up a blog for them on my YouTube channel so keep a look out there for more of them. I will put out a notice on both the Facebook and Twitter pages if I do though. I will still keep on doing the usual blog post/cover combo every Tuesday. Check back next week and share my other pages as well as the blog with your friends please! Enjoy the rest of your week!