Metric
Fantasies
Independent
Rating: 4
It‘s become a recent trend that as artists create new records, they add a variety of instruments here and there, use a pinch of synthesizer, toss in a tasty beat mix, sprinkle in a couple clever lines and gently place it into the indie rock oven and hope for the best, yes?
Rather than add layers and layers of oftentimes appealing surface fluff, Ontario-based indie rock group Metric decided to strip to its roots.
After a four-year break from songwriting and a soul-searching trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, singer and keyboardist Emily Haines said in [] [omit oddities lm] recently, “The songs that I wrote here were the simplest and clearest writing that I‘ve done in I think in my whole life.“
Fantasies, which was released a week early on Apr. 7 (due to an “earlier release“), is an accumulation and culmination of past Metric records. The tracks on Fantasies bare similar lyrical and auditory characteristics of previously recorded tracks, as well as contextual parallels.
Many feelings are expressed in Fantasies, such as love, hopelessness, battling internal issues and overcoming difficulties – just as the name of the album implies.
In past records, Metric subtly interweaved serious social and political issues and commentary into their music that are evident in tracks such as “Monster Hospital“ and “The Police and the Private“ off Live it Out (2005), thereby evoking a faint sense of impending doom.
Fantasies continues to address issues, though the perspective is noticeably more optimistic than it has been previously. That is not to say the contents are cheerful and the sound popish as opposed to creatively raw in a tasteful fashion.
The added brilliance of Fantasies is that it may appeal to everyone in the sense that there are different aspects of the music to pay attention to. If it‘s not the melodies and progressions keeping a listener in tune, then it must be Haines‘ clean, windswept voice cooing, “If you‘re still alive/ My regrets are few/ If my life is mine/ What shouldn‘t I do?” Either way, the love will grow.
Give these tracks a listen: “Blindness“ “Twilight Galaxy“ “Stadium Love“
For fans of: Broken Social Scene, The Stills
– Simone Wahng
