Metric: Fantasies [LAST GANG]

Why you'll love it

Fantasies is the Toronto band's best-loved record. It won the Juno for Alternative Album of the Year, was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize and went top ten in Canada, and "Help I'm Alive" and "Gimme Sympathy" are bona fide Canadian classics.

This edition

• Single LP, 10 tracks
• Last Gang pressing
• Includes "Help I'm Alive", "Gimme Sympathy" and "Gold Guns Girls"

About the album

Metric had been one of Toronto's best-kept secrets for years (Emily Haines and James Shaw first got together in the late '90s, and Haines was also part of the Broken Social Scene orbit), but Fantasies is where they finally burst out. They put it out themselves in 2009 after years of label frustration, and it debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart before climbing to No. 6 in Canada.

It's a sleek, glittering, guitar-and-synth record that somehow sounds both glamorous and anxious. "Help I'm Alive" pounds like a nervous heartbeat, "Sick Muse" and "Gold Guns Girls" are pure stadium-sized indie, and "Gimme Sympathy" ("Who'd you rather be, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?") is a singalong for the ages. Haines has rarely sounded better, and Toronto has rarely sounded cooler.

Also at Kops: more Metric on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Last Gang, first out in 2009.