And that's because Metric's latest proves that they still create the perfect soundtrack to a grey day. Fantasies is moody and aggravated and still hasn't quite forgiven you yet. Fantasies is rainy days and skivey days spent in strange places. Fantasies is not knowing the answers, not knowing the solutions. Fantasies may be the solution or may just be another part of the problem.
As an album it might be Metric's most sophisticated yet. It is certainly more measured and consistent, but it also has some of their biggest single songs. 'Help I'm Alive', with its insistent beat and soaring chorus is fantastically conflicted and the break, where it drops to just the bass and vocal, is glorious. Other highlights come in the ugly truth of 'Gold Guns Girls' and closing track 'Stadium Rock', with the former sounding like a friend telling you the ugly truth from which you have long hidden whilst the latter calls Yeah Yeah Yeahs to mind with its squawks and Nick Zinner-esque guitar work.
If BlackPlastic is going to spend an afternoon battered and bruised it can't think of a better album to soundtrack it. Fantasies sounds like the brutal honesty of someone who can do nothing but tell the truth, and sometimes we all need a bit of humble pie.
BP x
Released on 27 April 2009, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD
