[Review/Listen] – Feist – “Metals”

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We all still clearly remember Feist singing and dancing in a sparkly blue jumpsuit, surrounded by multicolored, similarly-clad dancers, in the iPod Nano commercial that featured her massive pop hit “1 2 3 4” and turned her from indie darling to global sensation.  Since 1999, Feist has released three albums, all cheerful, well-executed pieces of indie-pop.  But with her fourth, “Metals“, she sheds most of that sunniness and swaps it for a bit of wind chill. The difference is even visible in the album art, in which a perilously-perched Feist peers over a cold, hard landscape from a dead tree branch.  Quite a difference from the sequined dancer of just a few years ago.

That’s not to say that the shift to a darker tone is illusory.  Along with the look come more mature lyrics, a better showcasing of  Feist’s tender voice and a more developed idea of what an album can be, with tracks like “Anti Pioneer” and “Bittersweet Melodies” blending perfectly into each other and giving the impression of a whole.  In fact, most songs seem to mesh with each other, even when they don’t actually audibly combine, because the album’s identity is so clearly defined.  Feist may me exploring new ground, but she seems to have found her way pretty quickly.

“Metals” kicks off with the metallic-y “The Bad In Each Other”, which sets the rather desolate tone for the rest of the album with lyrics like “and a good man, and a good woman/can’t find the beauty in each other.”  The second track, “Graveyard”, is an anthemic masterpiece, with Feist’s vocals shining amidst a chorus of equally-angelic sounding singers persistently chanting “oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, bring them all back to life.”  ”Graveyard” instantly ups the bar, and, luckily, Feist never lets it drop.

The next two tracks, “Caught A Long Wind” and the first single from the album “How Come You Never Go There“, both succeed at further establishing this album’s gorgeous scenery.  Listening to Feist’s voice glide over lyrics like “I caught a long wind/a long life wind/I got to know the sky/but it didn’t know me/got to see the light/and land on top of the sea/and be the bird, be the key” is like being there, like flying over the barren countryside of the album cover.

Feist even explores a stronger, less vulnerable side of her musicality.  “A Commotion” features a choir of male singers part chanting, part screaming the title of the song over strong percussive sounds.  Meanwhile, “Cicadas And Gulls” and “Comfort Me” reveal a slightly more acoustic, more bare sound from Feist, showing that she can do without the level of production that has long been featured on her albums.

The album winds down carefully, almost as if Feist is still guiding her listeners by the hand, in and out of the perilous ground she has created.  To be completely honest, I have never been a fan of Feist, partly because I dismissed her as a one-hit wonder and as merely a pop artist, and partly because her sound never appealed to me.  I found “The Reminder” pretty, but nothing much more than that.  But “Metals”, at least in my opinion, is an absolute masterpiece, and I can’t stop listening.

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