Metric

Sporting the dual engines of Emily Haines' darkly powerful vocals and the nimble, versatile indie alt-rock punch of the band, Metric began life as a new-wave-inspired act but soon set their sights higher and sought to capture arena-sized crowds with their outsized yet still bleedingly human songs. Early albums like 2005's Live It Out featured spiky guitars, sharp synths, and jerky tempos, thrusting Haines into the disaffected Debbie Harry role, one she more than ably inhabited. With 2009's Fantasies, the group added space to the arrangements in a successful effort to move to t...