With “Fantasies,” Metric is ready to start playing stadium shows. Not only does the band’s latest album close with a song called “Stadium Love” – complete with a sing-along chorus – but it’s the most commercial offering yet from the Canadian indie-rock quartet.
Solid from top to bottom, the album was 18 months in the making as it was recorded in spurts, allowing band members time to “reconnect with our humanity.”
The result is an introspective look at life, love and fame delivered in 10 upbeat tracks that stick in your mind like a to-do list of all good things.
Haines muses on the pressures and pleasures of life on the opening song, “Help I’m Alive,” a rocking track than begins with an industrial thump. She celebrates and laments the power of love on “Sick Muse,” a pop-flavored tune with crunchy guitars.
The band plays with electronic sounds, which provide a fitting backdrop for Haines’ ethereal voice.
Metric sticks to its rocking roots on “Gold Guns Girls,” a song about perpetual dissatisfaction regardless of the wealth, weapons or women available, and “Satellite Mind,” another track about searching fruitlessly amid abundance.
Haines pays tribute to “burnout stars” and rock shows on “Front Row.” But there’s no burnout here. Bring on the rock show.
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Metric
“Fantasies” (MMI)
Genre: rock
Grade: A