After a long career making first-rate new wave-inspired stadium indie rock,
Metric could likely keep cranking out the same album over and over and nobody would blame them. You don't ask
Steve Martin to stop being funny or Steph Curry to stop hitting three-pointers; anyone at the top of their game should stay there as long as they can. That being said, the COVID-19 pandemic inspired the band to go deeper on 2022's
Formentera, both lyrically and musically. It's their most wide-reaching effort yet, with the arrangements shifting from the sounds of bedroom pop at its most isolated at one moment, then bursting with orchestral grandeur the next. The contrast between tinny drum machines and ringing piano chords, swelling synths and overloaded circuitry, clanging guitars and bubbling bass lines can be breathtaking from song to song. On the epic-length "Doomscroller," it all happens within one song as the pummeling techno-rock verses give way to tender piano-and-voice interludes, then culminate in a heart-tugging crescendo of distorted guitar and soaring vocals. The arrangements had to be almost perfect to keep up with the words and voice of
Emily Haines. Lyrically, she taps into the pain, suffering, and loneliness of the pandemic while at the same time leaving the door open to hope on powerful songs like "All Comes Crashing," where she pledges her love no matter how bad life gets. Her voice is perfect for the emotional ups and downs that the songs detail, as she's equally good at reaching the back of the arena with her powerful pipes and dialing it way down to whisper real feelings into the nearest willing ear. A good example of the former is the slowly rolling power ballad "Enemies of the Ocean" where she takes flight in the choruses; one of the latter is the gentle title track, where her double-tracked voice nestles in close like a secret. Like most of the band's albums, there is an admirable balance between the epic and the sincere; they also let loose occasionally and turn in a song that's sure to get feet moving and hearts beating more quickly. The percolating rocker "I Will Never Settle" and the
Duran Duran-esque "Oh Please -- which features
Haines at her swaggering best -- definitely fit that particular bill. These songs may be more traditionally
Metric than some of the album's more excitingly experimental work, but it feels like the band have invested them with just a dash more energy and emotion. The whole record is pulsing with both those elements and comes across like the group's most important album, only without the pretension that kind of thing often entails. It's more that
Formentera captures the warring emotions, steady fears, and crushing uncertainty of the era it was made in and delivers it all wrapped up in triumphant and true songs that one will want to spin again and again. ~ Tim Sendra
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