ALBUM: Metric // Fantasies
ALBUM REVIEW: Metric – Fantasies
words: Jamie Milton
“If somebody’s got soul / You’ve gotta make the move”
Metric have soul. They have an effortlessly achieved demeanour of cool that has always been something to be reckoned with. In ‘Live It Out’, tracks were refreshing, all due to a rare gothic groove that scared the living shit out of you. Think about the first time ‘Patriarch On A Vespa’ blew you away with its overhwelming powerful opening chord. They had intention, direction, a consistent aim and achievement. I think you can probably tell where I’m going with this…
Whether some big-wig record heads have their ears parked on the studio walls or whether it was a genuine belief that commercial success was the right way to go, ‘Fantasies’ is an altogether manifested attempt to build on reasonable popularity and mould it into something huge. It’s not, strictly speaking, ’selling out’. No. It’s a bandwagon jump on musical trends but it’s not neccesarily a die-hard attempt to lure in the dollar. But in this plunge for the riches, something’s fallen out of their pockets. The dirtiness of Emily Haine’s lyrics – gone. The tightness and formidability of the rhythm section, the overall sound – only visible on one single track, ‘Gold G
uns Girls’. That very song, assisted in some small part by occasional glimmering moments of hope, save the album from falling from the money pit straight down through the trap door to oblivion.
‘Stadium Love’’s title on its own is definitely a statement, reassuring all of where exactly Metric aren’t aiming for. But they leave without any indication of where exactly they are heading. Metric has always been Haines’ outputs for the jaunty pop, the side-step from her mirkier creations as a solo artist. Here, there’s no sense of joy or relief on her part – as a project, Metric doesn’t sound refreshing to any of the members anymore.
It feels like more than just a stumble, more on the level of a fifty-foot-dive from a luxury apartment onto rusty concrete. Truthfully, never has an album so much deserved to be laid out on an interrogation table, repeatedly asked “what the fuck just happened?” The first three tracks, commencing with the awkward but catchy ‘Help, I’m Alive’, declare something at least, and warrant mild applause. ‘Gold Guns Girls’, believe it or not, is near-on perfect. But there onwards comes a dip so severe, the musical equivalent of Paradise to Hades, that you feel physically offended. ‘Stadium Love’ is the perfect example of how not to apply synthesizers and stop-start rhythms, the culmination of a dreadful period of indecision and what must be sheer laziness.
3.9
mp3: Metric – Gold Guns Girls (zshare)
MFM @ HYPEM
April 24th, 2009 at 10:19 am
hi, i disagree with you. to me fantasies is a culmination of beliefs set simply and honestly in a tangible form for the masses to process. i think it also holds true to the raw sounds metric has always encouraged an enjoyable itch into me. yes they use melodies and consistent rhythms frequent to pop culture. but ive never heard an album with so many dancible, re-mixable, make me thinkable tracks. artists sometimes have lulls in their process of creating that because of breakthrough it becomes hard status to live up to. it is usually best to process the incomprehensible in simple forms. to me, metric is processing something most people dont even ever consider in their daily lives. and they are processing it with simple basic music because that is the best. its not practice that makes perfect, its perfect practice that makes perfect. this album to me is well thought out and well produced and well composed. maybe you dont understand what it means to be a female artist in this world. But this album was increadibly refreshing! Just another bright light on their path!