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+--- Thread: Metric - Synthetica (/showthread.php?tid=7130)
Metric - Synthetica - Music Head - 12-06-2012
online listen
borderline electronic
Debbie Harry sounding
Lou Reed guest spot on The Wanderlust
why didn't it say featuring.....
1.4 from me and a converted 2.4 from the pros at allmusic
from the album - Speed The Collapse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jiQ1QpNSkA
released June 12th, 2012
![[Image: 220px-Metric-synthetica.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/20/Metric-synthetica.jpg/220px-Metric-synthetica.jpg)
Bio - from allmusic
Metric are a band with an eclectic, adventurous outlook, whose music encompasses elements of synth pop, new wave,
dance-rock, and electronica and whose hometown has vacillated between Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, and
London over the course of the group's existence. Metric's story began in 1998, when vocalist/keyboardist Emily
Haines met guitarist James Shaw in Toronto, Canada. Although born in New Delhi, Haines -- the daughter Paul Haines,
a Canadian-American poet best known for his collaboration with jazz artist Carla Bley -- had moved to town by the
age of three. While studying at the Etobicoke School of the Arts, a high school for aspiring artists in Toronto, she
met fellow students Amy Millan and Kevin Drew, future members of Stars and Broken Social Scene. After attending
university in Vancouver and Montreal, she returned to Toronto in 1997 and eventually crossed paths with the British
-born Shaw, who'd relocated to Toronto following three years of study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York
City. Haines and Shaw discovered they were musically simpatico and began writing songs together.
During a sojourn in Montreal, Haines and Shaw began recording demos of the material that would become Metric's debut
EP, Mainstream. After its release in 1998, the two relocated to Brooklyn, New York, and collaborated occasionally
with Torquil Campbell and Chris Seligman of the group Stars, which later included Amy Millan. After cutting more
demos using synths and a drum machine, they were scouted by representatives of a major music publisher who flew them
to London to work with producer Stephen Hague. Haines and Shaw combined the London-recorded tracks with material
they cut in Brooklyn, and the results formed Metric's first full-length album, Grow Up and Blow Away. In 2000,
Metric returned to the United States to sign a deal with Restless Records, but shortly before the album was
scheduled for release in 2001, Restless was bought out by Rykodisc, and under the new ownership the Metric album
went onto the back burner. Around this time, Haines and Shaw met drummer Joules Scott-Key, a Michigan native who'd
relocated to Brooklyn after attending a music school in Texas. Scott-Key was soon invited to join Metric, as was
bassist Joshua Winstead, who had attended the same Texas school.
Metric's members moved to Los Angeles while trying to sort out their deal with Restless, with Haines and Shaw
returning to Toronto for a spell to work with their old friends Amy Millan and Kevin Drew in the group Broken Social
Scene. Once they reconvened in L.A. and began working with their new rhythm section, Metric decided that the pop-
oriented, electronic sound of Grow Up and Blow Away was no longer representative of their music. Metric subsequently
parted ways with Restless and took the masters for Grow Up with them. In the fall of 2003, the Canadian independent
label Everloving Records (later re-baptized Everloving) released Metric's second "debut" album, Old World
Underground, Where Are You Now? The album, which was also picked up by Last Gang Records, became a major critical
and commercial success, especially in the band's native Canada. It was followed in 2005 by Live It Out, another
successful release, and the group embarked on a lengthy international tour before taking a hiatus.
During the break, Haines went on an extended vacation in Argentina and made guest appearances on albums by the
Stills and Jason Collett, in addition to releasing two records with her solo project Emily Haines & the Soft
Skeleton. Scott-Key and Winstead moved to Oakland, California, and formed the band Bang Lime. Shaw headed back to
Toronto and opened a recording facility, Giant Studio. A revised edition of Grow Up and Blow Away received a belated
release in 2007, and Metric regrouped one year later, after Haines decided she'd had enough of the downbeat music
she'd composed with the Soft Skeleton. Now based in Toronto once again, the group began working on a new album,
Fantasies, which was self-released internationally in April 2009 following a drawn-out negotiation with Last Gang
Records, who agreed to release the band from its roster. Fantasies became the group's most successful album to date,
selling 250,000 albums in less than a year, going platinum in Canada, and spawning a Top 20 single on the American
rock charts without the benefit of a label. The album's success led to them winning 2010 Juno Awards for Band of the
Year and Alternative Album of the Year.
They also made a splash in the world of cinema, scoring a prime spot on the Grammy-nominated soundtrack to The
Twilight Saga: Eclipse with the theme song "Eclipse (All Yours)" and contributing a song (the unreleased track
"Black Sheep") to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O'Malley actually took inspiration from
Haines and Metric when creating the character Envy Adams in the books; in the film she and her band the Clash at
Demonhead (with actress Brie Larson singing over the original backing track) play "Black Sheep." In 2011, the band
teamed with Academy Award-winning film composer Howard Shore on the soundtrack for David Cronenberg's adaptation of
the Don DeLillo novel Cosmopolis. The movie premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, right around the time the
group's fifth album, Synthetica, was released on the Mom & Pop Music label.
Album Review - from allmusic
After the commercial breakthrough of their 2009 album Fantasies, it would seem kind of unfair to ask Metric to do
anything differently on their next outing. That album perfectly took their usual tuneful blend of hooky new wave and
spooky synth pop and blew it up to stadium-huge levels while adding more emotional content than ever before. It was
a trick that seemed so improbable in the first place that it would be crazy for the group not to try re-creating it
on Synthetica. So they did. The album has the same glossy textures, gigantic sounding arrangements, huge choruses,
and open-hearted vocals as Fantasies did, but keeps the instantly memorable songs and exposed emotions intact. It
also retains the same balance of super hooky songs and gloomy ballads, hitting you in the gut one minute and sending
you off cheerfully singing along the next. (It's the same kind of trick Garbage were able to pull off in their
prime, and Metric sound very much like a widescreen Garbage throughout Synthetica.) The success that band has
achieved hasn't exactly healed Emily Haines' wounds, and her vocals have the same powerfully aching quality that has
always been there -- they cut through the music and right to the heart of the listener. Songs like "Artificial
Nocturne" and "Dreams So Real" hit very, very hard thanks to her vocals. Elsewhere, she shows a ton of range on
tracks as varied as the dramatic "Speed the Collapse," the creepily cute "Lost Kitten," and the dreamily desolate
"Nothing But Time." The band provides capable backing throughout, framing her voice in a soft web of sound and
creating modern pop that goes down easily but never bores. Only the unwelcome appearance of Lou Reed on "The
Wanderlust" breaks the mood of the record and brings it down to earth a bit. Even with his warbling croak gumming
things up, the song is a highlight on an album full of them. That Metric were able to follow up their best record
with another just as good is quite an achievement, hopefully something they will do again and again.
Track Listing
1. Artificial Nocturne
2. Youth Without Youth
3. Speed the Collapse
4. Breathing Under Water
5. Dreams So Real
6. Lost Kitten
7. The Void
8. Synthetica
9. Clone
10. The Wanderlust
11. Nothing But Time
Metric - Synthetica - bubba2match - 19-07-2012
I've downloaded all of Metric's music I could find, and so far nothing beats Fantasies...but this one comes close. I doubt they'll be able to do it again. I'm really hoping they don't pull a Keane and mess it all up, though. As long as they stay within their genre, I'll be happy. haha
Metric - Synthetica - Beaul - 30-07-2012
bubba2match Wrote:I've downloaded all of Metric's music I could find, and so far nothing beats Fantasies...but this one comes close. I doubt they'll be able to do it again. I'm really hoping they don't pull a Keane and mess it all up, though. As long as they stay within their genre, I'll be happy. hahaThe same as me.
Metric - Synthetica - xtian - 29-11-2012
Maybe this is great. i try to listen on this. Thanks for this.