Metric – Fantasies

The fourth album from Canada’s Metric starts with Help I’m Alive, which rather wonderfully sounds like Juliana Hatfield at her best. That is followed by new single Sick Muse, which is a rather glorious windswept alternative eighties tune, Emily getting carried away with her vocals. Satellite Mind is spiralling, but just yet more of the same. Twilight Galaxy is cool, very minimal, just keyboards and space like vocals, it’s a distant hum among the stars. Gold Guns Girls is a rattling indie electro thing, a robotic sexiness pervades, while Gimme Sympathy again hits a point where ideas are sounding very similar and the album drags. Collect Call works well though, changing tempo down again, it’s an other worldly thing where Emily skips among the clouds. Front Row is back to the way it was and a bit dull, Blindness gets the thumbs up as the slower ones seem to be working better and Stadium Love is a suitably epic closer, with animal combatants in the lyrics and riffing keyboards.

Fantasies is released on Metric Music International on April 27th, followed by a new single, Sick Muse, on May 18th
Metric's website is here