album of the week - 4.5

Metric

Fantasies

02. Records (2009)

why you'll love it:  easy listening indie rock

why you'll hate it:  boring.  plays it too safe

Biggest disappointment of the year!  

Metric has been a band that has always taken me by surprise.    On the surface and through descriptions, they've always sounded like a band that thinks its bigger and cooler than it really is.  I've quickly found that each of their albums have way more to them when you dig into them.  I've been scratching and crawling at Fantasies for weeks now, and am coming up with nothing.  

It's a drab, monatone, album with no real interesting melodies.  The best guitar riff in the whole album is coincidentally the same as heard in "Dead Stock Paradise" by the pillows.

+ boring lyrics.  I'm not a lyrics guy, but admit that the last album (Live It Out) had some really interesting quotes.  The only lyrics that stand out to me are the hammy over-sexualized lines, and that is because they are so terrible.  I'd imagine them thinking that they are being a bit risky, but promiscuity is ironically predicable and only for people who have no imagination.   

Even the music video for "Gimme Sympathy" is pretty much just "Undone" by Weezer, only with lots of annoying rock star posing.  Emily Haines has always had a kind of Madonna complex, but I was able to let that slide because the music was actually good.  Now, with such an uninspired release, the group just comes off as quite arrogant.  This album has nothing going for it at all.   Enjoy!