(Courtesy of Last Gang Records.)
Metric is a band I’ve always had high hopes for. They almost effortlessly toss off top-shelf, catchy-as-hell singles like “Combat Baby”, “Succexy” and “Monster Hospital” without sacrificing the politics of their lyrics or the intelligence of their music. Unfortunately, their albums have always been a different story. Both their debut, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? and its follow-up, 2005’s Live It Out, have proved major disappointments for me. Between the peaks of their singles lie some pretty steep drops. A lot of these tracks (“Hustle Rose” on OWU and “Too Little Too Late” on Live It Out being two prime examples) end up sucking the momentum out of the proceedings by blowing bad ideas into five-minute dirges.
And so, when the absolutely awesome “Help I’m Alive” took over Canadian radio three months ago (and I mean really took over, thanks to Canadian Content rulings stating that whenever an artist from this fair country of ours puts out a truly brilliant song, it gets played to death), I was excited, but not necessarily expecting great things from Fantasies.
But goddamn, was I happy to be proven wrong. Maybe it’s because they’re all getting to be in their mid-30s and see this as their last shot at blowing up big or maybe it’s because of the unusually long break between albums but whatever the reason, Metric have put together the best album of their career. It’s like they took the template for their past singles and applied it to just about every song on the album. After the brilliantly shifting dynamics of “Help I’m Alive”, “Sick Muse” sees an innocuous little guitar riff overwhelmed by a seething Emily Haines railing against romance and all its champions. “Watch out Cupid, stuck me with a sickness / Pull your little arrows out, and let me live my life” go the opening lines, before Haines lays into those who treat looking for their soulmate as life’s new religion: “Everybody just wanna fall in love / Everybody just wanna play the lead”. Emily Haines can be accused of talking or whispering her way through a lot of songs in the Metric catalogue, but not here. She sings those lines in “Sick Muse” with more vigor and intent than anything on OWU or Live It Out, reaching for, and hitting, some seriously high notes before collapsing into a cushion of angelic harmonies.
It’s an early standout on an album full of them. Second single “Gimme Sympathy” sends the synths into overdrive on what’s sure to be one of this summer’s anthems, while “Satellite Mind” rides its propulsive guitar line into lyrics like “Heard you fuck through the walls / I heard you fuck when I’m bored”. The second half of this album takes things a little more gently with songs like “Blindness” and “Collect Call” relying more on atmosphere and mood than a kick-ass hook, but while in the past Metric may have let these ballads drift into the ether, here they build them up, adding new twists as the songs progress.
Fantasies isn’t a perfect album. “Twilight Galaxy” drags on too long, repeating lyrics that don’t merit the attention paid them, and the second half isn't as well paced as it could be, but it’s still one of the best albums I’ve heard this year and a damn sight better than I thought Metric capable of at this stage in their career. Count me a fan.
And so, when the absolutely awesome “Help I’m Alive” took over Canadian radio three months ago (and I mean really took over, thanks to Canadian Content rulings stating that whenever an artist from this fair country of ours puts out a truly brilliant song, it gets played to death), I was excited, but not necessarily expecting great things from Fantasies.
But goddamn, was I happy to be proven wrong. Maybe it’s because they’re all getting to be in their mid-30s and see this as their last shot at blowing up big or maybe it’s because of the unusually long break between albums but whatever the reason, Metric have put together the best album of their career. It’s like they took the template for their past singles and applied it to just about every song on the album. After the brilliantly shifting dynamics of “Help I’m Alive”, “Sick Muse” sees an innocuous little guitar riff overwhelmed by a seething Emily Haines railing against romance and all its champions. “Watch out Cupid, stuck me with a sickness / Pull your little arrows out, and let me live my life” go the opening lines, before Haines lays into those who treat looking for their soulmate as life’s new religion: “Everybody just wanna fall in love / Everybody just wanna play the lead”. Emily Haines can be accused of talking or whispering her way through a lot of songs in the Metric catalogue, but not here. She sings those lines in “Sick Muse” with more vigor and intent than anything on OWU or Live It Out, reaching for, and hitting, some seriously high notes before collapsing into a cushion of angelic harmonies.
It’s an early standout on an album full of them. Second single “Gimme Sympathy” sends the synths into overdrive on what’s sure to be one of this summer’s anthems, while “Satellite Mind” rides its propulsive guitar line into lyrics like “Heard you fuck through the walls / I heard you fuck when I’m bored”. The second half of this album takes things a little more gently with songs like “Blindness” and “Collect Call” relying more on atmosphere and mood than a kick-ass hook, but while in the past Metric may have let these ballads drift into the ether, here they build them up, adding new twists as the songs progress.
Fantasies isn’t a perfect album. “Twilight Galaxy” drags on too long, repeating lyrics that don’t merit the attention paid them, and the second half isn't as well paced as it could be, but it’s still one of the best albums I’ve heard this year and a damn sight better than I thought Metric capable of at this stage in their career. Count me a fan.
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