I’ve been following Canadian indie rock band Metric for quite a while now – ever since I first heard their hit Monster Hospital, I’ve been hooked. They’ve changed their sound somewhat over the years, but each album sees the band reinventing themselves, to their credit.
Review by Jane Howkins
Feature photo by Justin Broadbent
The last time I saw Metric perform was back at Manchester’s Ritz in 2018, so it’s fair to say it’s been a long time coming! We headed down to see the band at Manchester Academy 2 last Tuesday, and it felt like a homecoming. It’s a slightly smaller venue than expected, but the compact setting made the atmosphere much more enjoyable. The only minor issue was that the main microphone seemed to be a little quiet at first, but this was soon fixed.
The band played a rather risky song from their latest album first – Doomscroller. It’s perhaps the longest song they’ve ever written, coming in at a shade under ten and a half minutes. The track goes through several movements, changing the tempo rapidly between slower, piano-based parts and louder, EDM-style moments that wouldn’t be out of place at a rave. Despite being a somewhat odd choice of opener it worked, getting the crowd into a suitable mood for the rest of the evening.
Most of their albums were covered, although latest release, Formentera, took primary position, with six tracks played. It’s a bit of a shame as they’ve got so many good songs from previous albums – I would have liked to have heard more from their previous release, Art of Doubt. However, the new tracks worked well with the set, with particular favourites being False Dichotomy and All Comes Crashing.
Gold Guns Girls brought the band’s trademark buzzsaw guitars back into the fray, seeing the band delivering a blistering assault on the ears. The next track, Dark Saturday, was another firm crowd favourite, showing just how amazing Metric are at songwriting – seeing vocalist Emily Haines dancing around the stage with joy was a wonder to behold.
The set was fairly well paced – most of the songs chosen were upbeat, but there was a short break in the middle in which two acoustic songs were played: Twilight Galaxy and old favourite, Combat Baby. The latter went down particularly well with the audience, and you could really sense that Emily and co. were ecstatic to be performing live again.
Gimme Sympathy (one of my favourite Metric songs) played just before the encore, showing some irresistibly poppy melodies mixed into an indie rock package. Monster Hospital and Black Sheep were, of course, played during the encore, before the band left us on a high note with Breathing Underwater.
Metric show no signs of slowing down yet – it will be exciting to see what they come up with on their next album!