Pitchfork

Photo by Kathryn Yu

You can count on Metric lead singer Emily Haines to mix the most emo shit you've seen/heard in your life (see: her quite good and quite hushed solo album, a new "behind the music"-style video about Metric's upcoming album) with some real rock-star panache (see: opening for the Rolling Stones, her gold lamé outfit at last year's All Points West). Haines and her Metric mates are going for more tender-but-tough new wave heights with a new LP, Fantasies.

The 10-song album is out April 14 on Last Gang in Canada and Arts&Crafts in Mexico, and will be self-released throughout the U.S., Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Super fans who pre-order the record starting March 2 at the band's official site will be rewarded with ever-tempting "bonus materials" and an MP3 of first single "Help, I'm Alive," which is also streaming on Metric's MySpace now. "Hard to be soft, tough to be tender," sings Haines on the song; so many contradictions, so little time. Will the Canadian foursome finally capture their borderline-dangerous live energy on record? We'll be listening...and waiting for the inevitable spring/summer tour announcement.

Fantasies:

01 Help I'm Alive
02 Sick Muse
03 Satellite Mind
04 Twilight Galaxy
05 Gold Guns Girls
06 Gimme Sympathy
07 Collect Call
08 Front Row
09 Blindness
10 Stadium Love