Metric – Romanticize the Dive

Roughly a decade ago, many of Britpop’s supporting players started popping up to play their best remembered albums in full. As the 2020s wear on, it’s been the indie kids of the mid-to-late 2000s.

Among them are Canada’s Metric, who are less well known in the UK than sometime roommates Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but have earned plenty of fans with a sound that blends the line between dreamy indie and rockier fare.

Their tenth album, Romanticize the Dive, was conceived following one such tour, when they performed their 2009 breakthrough Fantasies.

Spurred on, Emily Haines, James Shaw, and rhythm section, Joshua Winstead (bass), and Joules Scott-Key (drums), reunited with Gavin Brown, who produced that record and 2012’s Synthetica.

On Romanticize the Dive, some of the jagged edges of their earlier work have gone, but that feels right as they mature and offer something more reflective.

Opener Victim of Luck has a hazy, soaring feel, with Haines’s lead vocals having shades of Karen O and co. It’s then on to the driving wistfulness of Wild Rut.

It’s Time is a Bomb, though, that is the first standout, with its title and main lyric serving as something of a mission statement. That “time is a bomb” which ticks away on relationships and the chances of a happy ending.

It’s just one of numerous tracks by lead songwriting duo, Haines and Shaw, that have at their heart ruminations about past experience, paths travelled and not, and personal growth or lack of it.

Tremolo takes on a similar theme, but gives it a slightly more sophisticated twist, with Haines’s vocals playfully dipping around epic synths and jangly guitar riffs.

The back half of the album provides more of the same – but that’s not a problem. In fact, it’s a good thing, as their sound is something you want to drink in.

Still, sticking out is the LCD Soundsystem sound-a-alike Loyal, which Haines differentiates from James Murphy’s oeuvre with her sweetly pensieve singing.

Closer, Leave You on a High does exactly what it says on the tin – even if, in keeping with the record’s contemplative themes, it’s no barn burner. Instead, a lush sonic soundscape sends you off in a meditative mood.

It’s a perfect end to an album that provides something new by looking to the past – in a way that feels more authentic than if Metric were simply going over old ground or trying a jarring reinvention. One that stays with you because of that.