The new Metric is really good. Not just their most accomplished long-player to date (which it is) or the best thing I've encountered so far in '09 (ditto), but, like, the most inspired and thoroughly enjoyable rock record I've heard in years.
"Gimme Sympathy" ("who would you rather be/the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?") is their bid for shimmering pop-rock immortality--and, if they play SNL, say, five years from now, it'll be the track they'll be politely but insistently asked to play along with their then-current single. "Help, I'm Alive" ("I tremble/they're gonna eat me alive/if I stumble") and "Satellite Mind" ("I'm not suicidal/I just can't get out of bed") traffic in moody rock star paranoia unnerving enough that you might momentarily forget they're not really as big of rock stars as they should be--an annoying technicality that Fantasies should serve to correct. "Stadium Love" ("wanna make a trade/cougar for a snake/wanna fall in love?") is the most perfectly loose, crunch-tastic last-song-of-the-show (played-after-the-biggest-hit-natch)--oh man, I can't wait to see 'em live again!
And the other six songs are very nearly as terrific, which means as much or more than the four cited above being totally golden. Where their previous efforts paired killer cuts like "Dead Disco" and "Succexy" with half-realized experiments and straight-up filler, Fantasies never lets up, angling for the pop-rock canon and coming within spitting distance.
