Metric: Formentera [METRIC MUSIC INTERNATIONAL]

Why you'll love it

Formentera is Metric's eighth album, out on their own Metric Music International label. It scored 79 on Metacritic, and four singles came from it: "All Comes Crashing," "Doomscroller," "What Feels Like Eternity" and "False Dichotomy."

This edition

• Stereo mix

About the album

Not many bands open an album with a ten-and-a-half-minute single, but Metric have never been shy about a grand entrance. "Doomscroller" starts as a jittery synth pulse and changes shape several times before it's done. Emily Haines said the traces of life that appear and disappear through the song mirror its shifting moods.

The rest of Formentera is tighter but just as big-hearted. Haines and James Shaw wrote the songs, and Shaw co-produced with Gus van Go and Liam O'Neil. "All Comes Crashing" is a soaring, guitar-and-synth anthem in the Metric tradition, "What Feels Like Eternity" glides on a glittering pulse, "False Dichotomy" bounces and broods at once, and the closer "Paths in the Sky" ends on a hopeful note. The title track, named for the small Balearic island, is a dreamy escape hatch to close side one, and "Enemies of the Ocean" and "I Will Never Settle" open side two with fresh momentum.

A companion album, Formentera II, followed in 2023. Metric have been a Toronto fixture for over two decades, and on this evidence they still haven't learned how to make a small record. We'd rather they didn't start.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Metric Music International (cat# MET80216), the 2022 album.