Gary's Metric Review

I feel a little strange reviewing this album. Back in March Dave and I spent a full week praising this album and listening to it relentlessly. You can almost hear us bickering - "I like it more." "No, I like it more!"

But schoolgirl antics aside, we had every reason to praise this album. Of the 10 Polaris albums it might be the most lush, well thought-out and well produced of the bunch. With Fantasies we find Metric at their creative apex to date, producing some of their finest work musically and lyrically.

That said, there's nothing that "speaks to me" about this album. It doesn't move me, make me think or provoke any other emotional response - it's just a really great album that's enjoyable to listen to. It's fun, danceable indie-rock that has virtually no controversy surrounding it or insight to impart, which is fine. Not every album has to touch that intellectual place or save some 17 year-old from a "dark time," (that's what MySpace is for). It's enough to create fantastic music and be done with it.

But I feel obliged to pass along something to you - dear reader - so I'll forage for a few musical nuggets to review. Like the fact that from the opening lines of the album you get the sense that singer Emily Haines is willing to put it all out there, bearing her soul no matter what the consequences:

"I tremble...they're going to eat me alive,"

Haines has one of those distinctive, Stevie Nicks type voices that sets her apart from the other girl-band singers. You can hear it anywhere (like buried in Broken Social Scene song), and know exactly who's singing. But now you can say the same thing about her lyrics. There's a familiarity these days in her words which are all told from the first person and are pretty intimate to boot. She seems more inclined than on previous albums to talk about herself without any deep metaphors or hazy allegories. Although she does still love a good turn of phrase.

As I said it's clear the band has stepped up its game on this album to produce something special (musically at least). And like Ryan pointed out in his post, this is just the type of album that throws a band from indie-darling to Billboard Top 40 material and appearances on Regis and Kelly. Some bands can handle that exposure and still create poignant, artistic music while others fall all over themselves to churn out more crowd pleasing milquetoast (Coldplay, I'm looking at you).

A band I've been into for many years recently jumped into the same sort of spotlight and I'm finding it harder and harder to listen to them when they seem so common place now. That special feeling of being one of only a few fans to appreciate them evaporates and suddenly the music doesn't sound quite as sweet. And so it's a special band that can achieve mainstream popularity and still hold on to their original fans.

I'm desperately hoping Metric knows that magic formula because I think they're going to need it.