Metric: “This is the most important record that we can make other than our first album”

nme.com:

Metric have spoken about how their new album ‘Formentera’ helped the band move forward through the uncertainty of the pandemic – while also reflecting on their two decades in music and the indie sleaze phenomenon.Speaking to NME in the run-up to the release of their eighth album, frontwoman Emily Haines described the new release, which arrives on Friday (July 8), as “probably the most important record that we can make other than our first album”.“Logistically, we could not get our band across the border and that was the longest we’ve gone without playing a show since we started,” Haines explained of working on the record during the pandemic. “There was a sense that this could actually be it – a lot of people are not going to bounce back in our industry.

There’s always a sense of urgency [when making a record], but it was really pronounced and the sense that we have to manifest our way out of this, it’s all we can do.”The singer and keyboardist said she was “really resistant” to the idea that working on ‘Formentera’ was the band “just killing time making music”.“It was the opposite,” she said. “We came out [of this period] not just with like, ‘Oh, Metric wrote some more songs’ – which is an accomplishment – but we really wanted this to be on a whole other level. [Opening track] ‘Doomscroller’ establishes that out of the gate.

We were really pushing ourselves to make the thing that will carry us into the next two decades of our career, as opposed to feeling like we’re just clinging to the past.”The album was previewed by a trilogy of tracks, including the aforementioned ‘Doomscroller’, the buzzing ‘All Comes Crashing’, and the propulsive drive of ‘What Feels Like Eternity’.