So Emily Haines and her band are back this week with the Art of Doubt album. I never really managed to get in to Pagans in Vegas but this one seems like a real return to form on first listen, the guitars are back in full focus and she seems to have recaptured the melodies that made me love their earlier work.

 

Now obviously she's busy heavily promoting the single Dressed to Suppress in the current BJSC and it's a great track, also loving Now Or Never Now, Underline The Black, Risk, Holding Out and the synth swerve of Anticipate at the moment.

 

Yeah, early days but I'm really into this one. It feels like the proper follow up to "Fantasies" that their last two albums weren't really in line with. There were some really great tracks on those albums but the electronic influences felt a bit clumsy at times. This one's great from start to finish and sounds exactly like the 2000s material I especially love ("Dressed To Suppress", "Risk", "Dark Saturday" & "Art Of Doubt" in particular).

Just about to give it my first listen.

 

Struggled to enjoy the majority of tracks on the previous two albums.

 

I absolutely loved Fantasies and everything they did previous to that album; my favourite Metric track, however, is this song which was a bonus track release on the aforementioned Fantasies, titled 'Waves'.

 

Very much enjoying “Dressed To Suppress” at the moment and “Dark Saturday” is great too. Fantastic to have them back on top form, I remember buying “Monster Hospital” back in summer 2006 when it charted at #55.. their only charting single to-date!

Bumping this because I feel the need to declare this my favourite album by them now. I've found myself coming back to it so often over the past year, I think every track is a keeper and the title track and Dressed to Suppress are two of their very best ever tracks. Hope it's not too long a wait until the next one if they're able to keep this up.