Album Review

Metric – Fantasies

• 21st Apr 2009

Metric return with their fourth studio album, and it is a more-of-the-same affair, but with equally impressive results.

First single Help! I’m Alive is a gorgeous opener, with the verse and bridge threatening to break out into a catchy rock number we are by now accustomed to them producing, before reverting to a gently strum chorus.
Sick Muse sees Emily Haines taking issue with Cupid, proclaiming “Everybody, everybody just wanna fall in love”, and is a highlight.

One liners and thought provoking metaphors (“My heart keeps beating like a hammer”) are littered throughout the entire album; however “heard you fuck through the wall” repeated throughout on Satellite Mind is neither, and smacks of trying too hard to be shocking in an otherwise standard song. Gold, Guns and Girls ups the tempo and is an energetic burst of wondering whether material possessions will ever be enough for true happiness. Gimme Sympathy could be a song straight from the 1980’s, and is all the better for it, as Haines poses the question “Who would you rather be, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?” Good question.

Haines vocals are magnificent throughout, often reverting from cool drawl to sweetly sung, and the production lets the songs breathe. The album tails off at the back end, but overall there is plenty here to excite old Metric fans, and more than enough to recruit new fans to the cause.