Review Summary: The romance of the honest dive
Rarely does a band openly admit that nostalgia is what drove them back to their roots. Such maneuvers can easily feel like a cynical attempt to recapture former glory, but the thematic core of Metric’s new work,
Romanticize the Dive, quickly dispels those doubts. The Canadian collective isn’t just exploiting the "retro-indie" trend to hook a new audience; rather, they are looking back at their youth with touching tenderness. The record feels like a sincere attempt by Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw to build a bridge between who they once were and who they have become today.
To achieve this goal, veterans of the Toronto scene specifically traveled to New York – the city where they met nearly thirty years ago. Moreover, the band reunited the creative team that worked on their most popular 2009 record,
Fantasies. This move allowed Metric to reconnect with their classic sound: that signature blend of studio polish and gritty, abrasive indie rock that was sometimes missing from the more experimental discs of the
Formentera double-album project.
Haines herself describes the album as a reflection on the “romance of an imperfect life” and a resolute attempt to strip away the mask of self-admiration. While working on the lyrics, Emily faced a deep internal crisis: she realized that after decades in the industry, her outlook on the world had grown far more cynical than that of the fearless, starving artist who stormed stages at the start of her journey.
Haines created the visual embodiment of this idea literally with her own hands: for the album cover, she taped the title of the album onto an inside-out t-shirt using ordinary duct tape. In the photo, Emily looks deliberately natural – swept up after dancing, with a messy fringe and a direct, disarming gaze. The use of tape is deeply symbolic for Metric; for years, Haines used to stick an “XO Metric” label onto the bass drum, and now this “garage” method has migrated into the album’s artwork, even inspiring the band’s exclusive custom font.
On
Romanticize the Dive, the band leans heavily into their fundamental strengths, creating multi-layered soundscapes at the intersection of synthwave, 80s dance music, and 2000s alternative rock. As a result, this stylistic cocktail yields a paradoxically futuristic sound. But whereas the pop-sensibilities on
Fantasies were sometimes masked by aggressive riffs, here the melodies and hooks take center stage without compromise. For instance, in
Tremolo, vibrating chords wrap around Emily's voice like an echo, creating a sensation of free flight, while
Forever Crush pierces the space with its robotic vocals and pulsing rhythms.
The album opens with the energetic
Victim of Luck, where celebratory guitar riffs and a fuzzy bass set the tone for the entire narrative:
“Let me take you back, it was the start of something”. Working on this track stretched across a year and a half, as it was agonizingly difficult for Emily to admit out loud to her current fears and awkwardness regarding her own flaws. The momentum continues in
Wild Rut and transitions into
Time Is a Bomb – an uplifting rock anthem with a powerful rhythm section and a chorus that literally bursts with life.
The emotional climax arrives with the shimmering ballad
Moral Compass, where heavy electric guitar meets acoustic instrumentation, laying bare an inner insecurity and a search for a path with a “busted moral compass.” Haines elevates this honesty to an absolute, finally abandoning stadium pathos in favor of a sincere dialogue with the listener. What Metric chooses to romanticize – that very dive – is not a fall, but the acceptance of reality in all its imperfection: whether it is a cheap dive bar or a prolonged life crisis, individuals have every right to fill that experience with meaning and pride.
Near the finish line, the record serves up
As If You’re Here – a cold synthwave shower for the listener, which gives way to a kaleidoscope of sounds in
Loyal with its massive synth chords. Following the sci-fi drive of
Antigravity with its sparkling arpeggios and the melancholic
Clouds to Break with its soaring harmonies, it is time for the final chord: the life-affirming, alternative-rock-style anthem
Leave You on a High. Haines considers this track a turning point: in it, she consciously flipped all negative mindsets into positive ones, finally shedding her cynicism and old grudges.
Romanticize the Dive clearly demonstrates that the past and present can not only coexist, but are obligated to fuel one another. This work has become a true crystallization of Metric’s musical history. If the band decided to call it a day tomorrow, this album would stand as their compelling final word, confirming that human connections and the independent spirit of the Toronto scene remain their ultimate guiding lights.
