Fans of Canadian indie pop/rock band Metric have been waiting almost four years for a new album since the release of Live it Out in 2005. Luckily, Fantasies is set to drop on April 14.
Metric, which consists of Emily Haines, Joules Scott-Key, James Shaw and Josh Winstead, was formed in 1998. Their barbwire pop-rock sound, thrashing guitar riffs, melodic keyboards and fast-paced disco-rock drums, has garnered them international success and a few big-hit dance singles.
Their first album, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now, was released in 2003 under Last Gang Records and scored the band everlasting success amongst the under-25 crowd with catchy singles “Combat Baby,” “Dead Disco, “Succexy” and “IOU.” Their next two albums, Live It Out (2005) and Grow Up and Blow Away (2007 – but was actually Metric’s first recorded album) continued the band’s success. Singles like “Monster Hospital” solidified Metric’s signature electric-rock sound, while others like “The Police and the Private” and “London Halflife” showed listeners a softer, more sensitive side to the band.
Following the recording and release of Live It Out, Metric went on a brief hiatus in order to pursue other projects. Haines released a solo album, Knives Don’t Have Your Back, which featured rather somber ballads accompanied solely on piano. Shaw took the time to build a neighborhood recording studio in Toronto with fellow musician Sebastian Grainger, while Winstead and Scott-Key toured their garage-rock band Bang Lime.
Then, about two years ago, the members of Metric came together and disappeared into the woods at Bear Creek, just outside of Seattle WA, to begin writing Fantasies. Rather than recording the songs right away, Metric took their new material on the road, testing the songs in front of live audiences until the songs gradually solidified into a singular sound.
Fantasies is meant to evoke a dream-like state. However, I’m not sure whether the album will be dreamy to all fans. The album opens with the solid mid-tempo, very commercially-pleasing single “Help I’m Alive,” which was released as a single on iTunes late last year. The song is followed by the up-tempo guitar-heavy “Sick Muse” and “Satellite Mind.” Both songs are very “classic” Metric in construction as well as sound. Fast-paced yet clean drums and guitars are heavily featured, while Haines’ steady, melodic vocals pierce through.
Next up is a slower, minimalistic (really just Haines’ vocals over synths) number called “Twilight Galaxy,” which is then picked up with a rip-roaring song “Gold Guns Girls.” For me, this is where the album begins to take a downturn. Perhaps I’m just longing for the old Metric sound I’ve come to love, but I found both of these songs really calculated and almost “cheesy” – probably not the repertoire they’ll be remembered for in the grand scheme of things.
“Gimme Sympathy” and “Collect Call” follow this slight dip. Both songs were apparently written in the woods during the band’s Bear Creek session, and both are really quite good. “Gimme Sympathy” sounds like a fresh approach to original Metric sound – you can almost hear how the band came back together after a few years to write a song like this. “Collect Call,” while different, is, in my opinion, a really beautiful ballad. Haines’ approach to the vocals is similar to her solo work, and the accompaniment, while simplistic and soft, still really moves.
The last three songs on the album are “Front Row,” “Blindness” and “Stadium Love.” All three feature very heavy, thrashing guitar sounds (in a “Succexy” sort of way), especially “Front Row.” The album’s closer is pretty much a glam-rock spectacle. The “ooo-eee-ooo-eee” chorus definitely evokes a picture of a large crowd sing-a-long, however, on a studio-recorded album, I’m not quite sure if this song really works as all of the added “sound effects” just end up sounding a bit distracting.
Overall, Fantasies is a good album – a little bit of a rollercoaster ride if you listen to it straight from start to finish, but overall, good. There are definitely a handful of songs from the album I could hear as great singles, but also some songs that just don’t rub me the right way. Will this long-awaited album please fans? Probably. But I’d much rather listen to their old stuff.
June 21st, 2009 at 8:01 am
[...] on April. The album, Fantasies, has received great reviews, some did state there were a few flaws (including our own Mona Alice), but what project doesn’t have these, personally this album sits in my top 10 list of 2009 [...]