Metronomy
– ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER –
Metronomy are a band that I’ve been slightly offhand with since their fourth album Love Letters; but, they’re in the Albert Hall tonight touring last year’s effort Summer ’08. The new album sees Metronomy take a more rhythmic, danceable, electronic route, a là LCD Soundsystem. Ironically, it’s since then they’ve been seemingly ‘losing their edge’…or so I thought.
Straight from the beginning of the show it’s obvious I need to reconsider my initial thoughts on the new material. Tonight is a clear confirmation that my attention should never have wavered.
Metronomy arrive on stage to enthusiastic applause from the crowd, an elation that’s short lived as Joe Mount and co. begin making their way seamlessly through tracks from the new album. They play ‘Back Together’, ‘Miami Logic’ and ‘Old Skool’ without giving the audience so much as a chance to breathe, mixing between the album openers without pause. That’s not a bad thing however, the atmosphere is as electric as the new sound. Only after fan favourite ‘The Bay’ are the crowd allowed an opportunity to show their appreciation again. They do so loudly. It feels a little more like one of the Albert Hall’s club nights in here, with people on the main floor and up in the rafters displaying some of the best/worst dad dancing I’ve ever seen.
Much like the dancing, there’s something wonderfully tragic about Metronomy. They’re wearing matching all-white outfits, there’s dry ice rolling around their stage and I’ve never seen a band so willing to include extended synth solos on multiple occasions during a set. You’d be fooled into thinking that Metronomy are tapping into the 80s nostalgia around now, but the reality is they’ve been doing it for years.
‘I’m Aquarius’ follows to a great reception, it’s the first track in the set they’ve played from Love Letters. They then delve even further into their back catalogue and play ‘Heart Rate Rapid’, one of the stand out tracks from 2008’s Night Out. It’s easy to forget Metronomy are a band with five albums, and it’s easy to forget how many hits they have. Although they’ve slightly altered their style in all their releases, older songs like ‘Love Letters’, ‘Corrine’ and ‘Love Song for Dog’ (madly 11-years-old) sound fantastic alongside the new ones. A small part of me even wishes they would break into ‘Heartbreaker’ so I can completely reconnect with the indie-school-kid buried deep inside of me. That track is missing from the setlist, along with another personal favourite, ‘The Upsetter’, which is appropriately upsetting.
They end the main set the way it started, mixing directly from ‘The Look’ into ‘Reservoir’. It’s truly a great party: both tracks have the crowd wailing back towards the stage.
The wailing continues as Metronomy are called back on for an encore. Mount takes a new position behind the drums leaving Anna Prior on lead vocals for ‘Love’s Not an Obstacle’, which they return with. All in all, Metronomy play an epic 20-song-set tonight. They finally end with ‘Everything Goes My Way’ and the final words repeated are: “Love… I’m in love… Again.” The feeling is reciprocal.
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When resisting the urge to put on the new Radiohead album for the one-billionth time, I try to keep my music listening as eclectic as possible.I was the clichéd skinny jeans & Strokes t-shirt clad indie kid in school clad and have never really grown out of that. Since starting university in 2012 I’ve got into lots of electronic, house, techno music and finding it very addicting. Favourites include Jon Hopkins, Todd Terje and Nicolas Jaar. Very recently I’ve been getting into old shoegaze bands like My Bloody Valentine, Ride & The Jesus and Mary Chain. I’ll have probably found something new by next week. Anything Thom Yorke puts his name to is one constant though.I’m a lover of CDs (probably because as a student I can’t quite afford vinyl) and my 250+ strong collection seems to be growing exponentially. If we discussed the pros and cons of physical music compared to streaming and how we consume music today, I could bore you for hours.Soup Kitchen is my spiritual home.I’ve pledged to take a review a month of an artist that I know nothing about, so sometimes I might sound like an idiot.
