''Choir of the Mind'' is the second studio album by Canadian singer/songwriter Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton. Coming 11 years after her first album, it was released on September 5, 2017 by Last Gang Records and elicited favorable reviews from critics. The album peaked in the top 20 of the American

Heatseekers Albums Top Heatseekers are "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. The Heatseekers Albums and the Heatseekers Songs charts were introduced by ''Billboard'' in 1991 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new an ...

chart, and also debuted in the top 50 on the

Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocea ...

and the American

Independent Albums The Independent Albums chart (previously titled Top Independent Albums) ranks the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays (EPs) in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by '' Billboard'' maga ...

chart.

Composition

Many of the lyrics on the album center on feminism. In an interview with ''Billboard'', Haines responded to journalists' claims that the album is about "a woman's place in the world" by stating that: "I’m going to resist the word 'about' because its not like a record about women’s place in the world at all ..I’m really interested in the idea of femininity as a free-standing life force, and not always constructed in relation to what it isn’t, or in opposition to masculinity, or some sort of implied animosity between the sexes or something."

Release

The album was released on September 5, 2017 by Last Gang Records. It was her first solo album in 11 years; however, in that time she had released three albums as part of the indie rock group

Metric Metric or metrical may refer to: * Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement * An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement Mathematics In mathema ...

, in addition to contributing to two

Broken Social Scene Broken Social Scene is a Canadians, Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed by Kevin Drew (vocals, guitar) and Brendan Canning (vocals, bass) in 1999. Alongside Drew and Cannin ...

records.

Critical reception

Upon its release, the album was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics. It holds a score of 75/100 on review aggregate site

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, indicating "generally favorable reviews," based on 11 reviews. Tim Sendra, writing for AllMusic, awarded the album 4 stars out of 5, praising her vocals as possessing an "understated power and graceful beauty," singling out the album's ballads as highlights and deemed the album "richly melodic, subtly dynamic, and emotionally powerful." ''Exclaim!'' awarded the album a score of 8/10 and praised "Legend of the Wild Horse" as "a quietly powerful rock ballad," concluding that the album was worth the 11-year wait.

Track listing

Adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

Credits

Adapted from

. *Justin Broadbent — artwork and photography *Phil Demetro — mastering *Emily Haines — vocals, production *Kenny Luono — engineering *Jimmy Shaw — mixing, production

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2017 albums Emily Haines albums