Metric creates best work yet

After random ventures and personal struggles, Metric has reunited.

By Rachel Post

Published April 2, 2009

Three-and-a-half years following Live It Out, Metric -- made up of vocalist/synth Emily Haines, guitarist Jimmy Shaw, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key -- has once again reunited to create their newest album, Fantasies.

Metric has been through a lot since releasing 2005's Live It Out, but their experiences have undoubtedly made the Canadian group stronger.

Fantasies is the perfect exhibition of Metric's incredible song writing and musical ability: bright yet cynical lyrics, catchy synths, delicious guitar rifts, heart-wrenching bass and powerful drums combine to create an album that is the closest to perfection Metric has yet achieved. The only drawback to the album is it contains only 10 songs.

During Metric's hiatus between Live It Out and Fantasies, Haines spearheaded Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton, which Shaw, Scott Minor of Sparklehorse, Justin Peroff of Broken Social Scene and Evan Cranley of Stars contributed to.

The Soft Skeleton was more raw in nature than Metric is; Haines substituted synth for piano on top of incredibly depressing (but addictive) lyrics and the other members contributed brass, strings and other percussion. The group released Knives Don't Have Your Back in 2006 and the EP What Is Free to a Good Home? in 2007.

Also during this period, Shaw created a recording studio in Toronto called Giant Studios and Winstead and Scott-Key toured with their garage-rock band, Bang Lime.

After touring with The Soft Skeleton, Haines traveled to Buenos Aires to restart her mindset.

"I came to Buenos Aires because it was the one place that I felt like I could discover for myself and I didn't know a singe person, which was important," Haines said in the "Help I'm Alive" video documentary, released on the band's Web site. "The songs that I wrote here were the simplest and clearest writing that I've done I think in my life."

"Help I'm Alive," the album's first single, is one of the first songs Haines wrote in Buenos Aires. Haines begins the song echoing "I tremble/They're gonna eat me alive/If I stumble/They're gonna eat me alive."

Despite lyrics that are often cynical, Metric's upbeat instrumentation is what defines the group. Metric has the uncanny ability to transform songs that would acoustically be depressing into dance-worthy gems.

Metric notably expresses this ability in "Gold Guns Girls," in which Haines speedily sings "I don't wanna bend like the bad girls bend/I just wanna be your friend/Is it ever gonna be enough?" over fast-paced synths and drums.

"Gimmie Sympathy" is lyrically more frivolous, but it remains philosophical at times. Haines sings, "We're so close to something better left unknown/I can feel it in my bones," but then, "Who'd you rather be/The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?"

The album ends with the hectic "Stadium Love." She sings, "Spider verses bat/Tiger verses rat/Owl verses dove/Every living thing/Pushed into the ring."

So it seems that three-and-a-half years, an existential crisis, a soul-searching trip to Buenos Aires, an incredibly morose venture called Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton, a garage-rock tour and the creation of a recording studio is just what Metric needed to create their best work yet.