Cut In Half And Also Double, by Emily Haines, is full of so many things I love about the 90’s. Listening to it the first time I had to keep stopping and checking that this wasn’t an album I owned when I was first living on my own. That it wasn’t one of the albums I listened to on countless road trips by one of the 90’s alternative female singers and/or bands that I loved (and still love). It feels like Emily is channeling her own collection of The Breeders, Throwing Muses, and Belly on this album – and maybe she is.
That said, at second look I see the album was released in 1996. It just never hit my radar, thus was never part of my collection/road trip soundtrack. If I’d known about it, I’m sure it would have been.
Emily Haines – Cut In Half and Also Double (1996)
Album Review
April 19, 2011
Track 3 on Cut In Half and Also Double, “Eden”, reminds me of smoky apartments filled with a cacophony of layered voices deep in different conversations late into the night and onto the next morning. Those kind of nights that leave imprints in how we all knew one another, and how I was known.
“Dog” reminds me of Belly’s song “Slow Dog”, as well as the whole of The Breeders’ Pod album. There’s something so raw in the lyrics, and the sound of the song. It feels equally parts contagious and alarming, with lines like:
“Your body is warm,
so is my vomit.”
I think “Bore” and “Freak” are tied as my favorites from the album. They are both so dark and delicious. Emily’s voice has never sounded so rich to me before as it does on these two tracks.
I think I’m going to just let this album play, on repeat, as I write some new stories, and characters. I do believe this album could become one of my collective creative muse records.
