Review: Metronomy – Metronomy Forever

As their most expansive album ever, Metronomy’s sixth album Metronomy Forever is the electronic act’s magnum opus, or at least tries to be.

Each of Metronomy’s albums have traits that set them apart. Nights Out was frantic and neurotic, The English Riviera was cool and breezy (like the recent Bag Raiders release), Love Letters was retro and psychedelic, and Summer 08 was slick and fun. At first glance, the descriptor one might use for Metronomy’s sixth album Metronomy Forever might be “holy crap, this is 17 tracks long! Who does Metronomy think they are releasing a 15+ track album in 2019,  Vampire Weekend or the National?”

The real theme of Metronomy Forever is that it’s Metronomy’s magnum opus, or at least tries to be. There’s a little of everything on its expansive track list, from instrumental jams to kitschy synthpop to dance-tuned rock to softer numbers. This grab bag approach expectedly has high points with some songs you’ll revisit again and again, others that you’ll take a hard pass on, and a few that will leave you thinking “…what the hell was that?”

The first thing to take note of on Metronomy Forever is that its 17 tracks range from rough sketches to fully-finished and polished pieces. An ungenerous listener might count no fewer than six tracks as interludes, leaving only 11 “actual” songs. However, there’s a lot of gray area in calling these tracks “interludes,” as they vary considerably in length and composition. On one end of the spectrum, you have the alien and/or whale noises of “Driving,” the bells of the intro track “Wedding,” and the bagpipe-like synths of “Insecure.” These are all about a minute long and can be skipped with no real loss. On the other end of the spectrum are tracks like “Lying Low,” which is just four minutes of lo-fi beats, heavy bass, and vocal samples of “woo/yeah,” making it like “Boy Racers” from Love Letters. “Miracle Rooftop” is in this same category, which combines a muted beat that makes it sound like you’re standing outside of a party with groaning synthesizers that could have been pulled from a John Carpenter movie. It would be hard to argue that these two tracks are just “interludes,” not only because of their length,” but also because of their complexity. Only the experimental “Forever Is a Long Time” exists in a weird nether region, where it’s too long to be overlooked but too undeveloped to be memorable, only leaving only an impression of “well that was weird.” None of these surpass the legendary “The End of You Too” from Nights Out as far as instrumental tracks go, but the longer ones show that Metronomy can still impress without words.

Like Summer 08, Metronomy Forever is essentially a solo effort by the band’s frontman Joseph Mount. Apparently, the backing members you see during live shows and in music videos weren’t involved in the actual recording of the album. While this was understandable on the electronic-based Summer 08, it’s more impressive on Metronomy Forever, where the best tracks are rooted in rock. The standout “Insecurity” is built around an electric guitar riff, and halfway through a bass line steals the show. A synthesizer repeats the melody for the song’s non-chorus, but it would be nothing without its guitar, bass, and drum parts. Likewise, it’s hard to imagine the album’s lead single “Lately” without its muted guitar riffs and fast-paced drumming. Both of these do a great job of blurring the line between electronic music and indie rock, and should make you scoff less at the label “indietronica.” They’re also all the more impressive when you realize they’re the byproduct of one man playing all the instruments.

Of course, Metronomy are best known as an electronic act, and most of Metronomy Forever relies on the same prominent synth hooks that made past singles like “The Look” and “The Bay” into hits. “Wedding Bells” is arguably the most up-tempo track on Metronomy Forever, even if Mount is singing about how the titular bells are meant for someone else. It’s built around a repetitive synthesizer note that barely changes pitch, bright synth notes that chime in during the chorus, and a guitar line that accompanies the oddly corny lyric “my guitar.” This corniness has nothing on the track “Salted Caramel Ice Cream” though, which has a beat very similar to Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and lyrics like “she’s sparkling like a glass of Perrier/she’s happy like my birthday.” Seriously, its lyrics are so campy that I can’t even figure out if “oh god she’s coming, don’t look up” is meant to be an innuendo or not. Of course, the “king of camp” title on Metronomy Forever belongs to “Sex Emoji” where Mount punctuates the track with falsetto cries of “Love! Honey! Sex! Money! Text! Emojis! Say! You Love Me!” It’s so distracting and out of step with everything else on the album that you may want to skip the track after the first listen. Mount might have gotten away with asking a falsetto-voiced version of himself out on a date on Summer 08’s first track “Back Together,” but “Sex Emoji” really pushes it.

It also wouldn’t be a Metronomy album without contrasts between bouncy synthpop and much more chilled-out electronica, something Metronomy shares with Hot Chip. Metronomy Forever often strikes the right balance here, as even its quieter parts can really shine. The early track “Whitsand Bay” features heavy drum and bass, but otherwise feels calm thanks to Mount’s vocals, while “The Light” is straight-up smooth electro-funk a’ la Chromeo. Other tracks can feel like a bit too much of a lull though, like the elevator muzak-backed “Walking in the Dark” and the Love Letters-sounding “Lately (Going Spare).” However, the album’s most stripped-back song, “Upset My Girlfriend,” is also one of its most compelling. Here, Mount sings solemnly of youthful missteps over strummed acoustic guitar and deep synth tones, and it feels like a first-time venture for Metronomy.

Metronomy Forever’s length and density make it hard to summarize, although “eccentric” might be a good place to start. For starters, some tracks on the album seem to have similarly-titled complementary tracks, like !!!’s latest, but I can’t figure out the relationship between the ominous interlude “Insecure” and the rocking “Insecurity” for the life of me. The album also closes with “Ur Mixtape,” a minute-and-a-half long anecdote about a former crush’s brother falling in love with a mixtape, providing an uncharacteristically abrupt end. From the wide range of styles to the otherworldly interludes, there’s a good chance you won’t “get” Metronomy Forever or love all 17 tracks. Instead, you’ll probably appreciate its more brilliant bits, which prove Mount’s ingenuity after six albums. If you don’t buy into “Metronomy Forever,” you’ll still want Metronomy for the foreseeable future.

Rating: 7/10