ALBUM REVIEW: METRIC – FANTASIES

Music | Johnny | April 4, 2009

Metric left us fighting the war, the war that wouldn’t stop for the love of God.

It has been 4 years since their 2005 release Live It Out which left the world reeling.

The past few months have been good to us with the full album of Metric’s new album Fantasies in our hands with the beautiful acoustic releases included.

Fantasies will be officially released on April 14 and its been a long time coming since “Monster Hospital” became an anthem and MSTRKRFT splattered it all over the dance floor.

It has to be said that we are biased toward Emily Haines‘ voice, which is a thing of beauty, even more so when it was fully expressed in her solo efforts. But Metric as we have mentioned before gave her edge, her frailties masked with their contributions as a band.

Emily Haines left for Buenos Aires to do some soul searching. She actually gave up writing songs a few months before and went there to be away from the hip, claustrophobic music scene of London or NY. It was pretty much a success and we guess she fought the war within to emerge with the “simplest and clearest” songwriting with an intent to make a record with a “really big and really dreamy sound”.

They release the album independently throughout the USA but go through Arts & Crafts for Mexico and Last Gang for Canada.

That being said, much is expected of Metric’s latest album and they have put out an incredibly accomplished album for the world to take in.

Two catchy pop gems in the form of “Help I’m Alive” & “Gimme Sympathy” are already staples in our dreamy playlists but here come the big question, is the album brilliant rather than just being good ?

The answer unfortunately, is that it does not reach the levels of being a great one, but is still a damn good album.

Maybe we raised the bar too high, but they have toned down on the electro infused into their music and some parts of their dynamism was diluted in the process. Put it this way, if a new band with a totally different name came out and we had zero expectations, this would actually make people stand up and listen. But they are Metric after all and we know full well what they are capable of.

While they have downplayed the electronica in their music, they are absolutely brilliant when they revert to acoustic sounds, so maybe they are are in the middle of two extremes they actually excel in and it seems they have chosen raw, rocking sounds this time round.

We definitely think its worth a purchase, and a real gem in the mass of garbage released every week. There are moments where Metric show us who they really are, but these moments don’t come up often enough on the album.

Still, an album to keep with music to listen to again and again.

Standout Tracks: Blindness, Collect Call, Acoustic tracks

Rating: 7.2/10

Watch the two videos of Metric below, one an interview with Supersweet magazine and another showing the RAW side of Metric.

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MORE METRIC:

1. GIMME SYMPATHY VIDEOS

2. METRIC, HELPLESS BASTARDS GO ACOUSTIC

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