Metric returns with their fourth studio album Fantasies. Written in a farmhouse studio in Washington State, the band’s studio in Toronto, and during lead singer Emily Haines’ self-imposed exile in Buenos Aires, Fantasies is a mixture of rock, electronica, and dance music intermingled with superb and genuine songwriting, excellent melodies, and dreamy influences.

Composed of 10-tracks, every song stands out on its own and is worth a full play. It begins with ‘Help I’m Alive’ a dark sounding tune that soon lifts. This song, like the rest of the album, carries ingenious melodic changes and a chorus that is catchy. It is both a picture of Emily’s present state but also a cry for help as she sings come take my pulse/ the pace is on a run away train. Soon my heart keeps beating like a hammer is sung causing even the most tone def to sing along loudly. ‘Gimme Sympathy’ is the second single off the album. A dance track that will have the kids jumping up and down at the chorus, has lyrics that touches on existentialism and humanism in an upbeat manner. While the rock tune ‘Gold Guns Girls’, describes and analyzes the world’s infatuation with the three G’s causing the song to wonder if it’s every gonna be enough.

There are softer tunes such as ‘Blindness’, a song that begins bare but is soon joined by drums and then returns the same way it began, calm and steady. Its’ rapid guitar and sensitive synths follows the melody as the words I want to leave/but the world won’t let me go/what it is and where it stops nobody knows is sung. On ‘Twilight Galaxy’ the vocals are turned up and the music goes down. It is here where the wisdom filled lyrics no glitter in the gutter and keep doing it wrong are heard over a mid-tempo beat.

The album ends with ‘Stadium Love’, a song created to be heard at a stadium and comes off effective in its purpose. It is full of classic kicks, high hats and distorted guitars. But no stadium song is complete without crowd participation. No worries, Metric has a solution. As Emily sings We’ve got stadium Love, the crowd is sure to respond with the harmony response ooh-ooh-ie-ooh, causing fans to enter into a concerted utopia.

Metric’s fourth album endeavor is truly breath taking. Fantasies has solid musicianship, simple yet poetic and meaningful lyrics, a myriad of melodies, and hooks that are memorable and exciting. For them all to exist on one album is a heck of an achievement. Fantasies may not only describe the images the band saw while creating the album, but it may be what other bands and singers/songwriters will start to have after listening to it.

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