Metric
Fantasies
Rating: 4.0
Label: Metric Music International
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Metric frontwoman Emily Haines’ teenage vocals juxtaposed with her simplistic yet dense lyricism and the band’s always-exciting, danceable alt-pop melodies mesh wonderfully to make Fantasies their most cohesive studio album to date. Haines lays it all out on the table in the radio-friendly dance-fest “Gimme Sympathy.” She asks as a probing third-party, “Who would you rather be/ The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?/ Oh, seriously/ You’re gonna make mistakes, you’re young.”
The Canadian quartet is back with their first album in four years and make it quite clear that indie-pop can be catchy, inquisitive, fun, dark and deeply reflective all at the same time. They’ve turned heads before with their Juno Award-winning 2003 debut Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? and 2005′s Live It Out, which was nominated for the 2006 Polaris Music Prize. Metric aims high and continues to do so with this latest project. The band once again places their intentions directly out in the open with fiery jams, like the album’s slightly harsh finale “Stadium Love,” bringing audiences and talent together to remind us that one is just as vital to the other’s survival using interesting, animalistic metaphors. Heavy and synthesized as the tune may be upon first listen, it carries glam overtones and touches on unfamiliar heartbeats, breathing new life into an already exploratory group of songs. It’s equally enthralling to hear the Broken Social Scene and Stars collaborators in a completely different change of pace. Their contributions to their Arts & Crafts labelmates are both exciting and touching, with “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl” from BSS’ {You Forgot It In People} being the most affecting and beautiful.
The band’s one weakness that ends up being one of their greatest strengths is a slight case of identity crisis. With hints of just about everything including new wave, pop, electronica, late-1970s glam rock and that pulsing alt-rock sound that Metric has thankfully never lost, they continue to surprise and satisfy with this album. A very instrumentally-invested production from band guitarist and co-founder Jimmy Shaw, along with Gavin Brown (Billy Talent, The Tea Party), gives depth and energy to just about every song, from a pingy-but-necessary guitar riff on “Satellite Mind” to the kick drum and extended cymbals on “Help, I’m Alive.” Tricks and treats like these may sound novel and trite on paper, but on this disc they’ve never seemed more important. It’s moments like those tiny riffs and moments that should bring heavy radio airplay – how could we forget Paramore’s inescapable Warped Tour drum-fest “Misery Business”? That thing was fucking everywhere; though I doubt I’ll ever catch Metric’s “Gimme Sympathy” or “Gold Guns Girls” on New York’s HOT 1-0-whatever.
Take a long listen to Fantasies. If you dream of opening up to the world and having it hear you loud and clear, maybe Metric can give you a crash course.
by Cameron Mason
