Metric Live Out Fantasies On Album

Metric will release Fantasies, the long-awaited follow-up to 2005's Live It Out, on April 14.

The album will be issued by Last Gang in Canada and Arts & Crafts in Mexico, while the band have arranged alternative distribution for the U.S., Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

"We might go down in flames, or it might be the best move ever," guitarist James Shaw says about the release plans. "Either way it will have been on our terms, and that for us is success."

Fans who pre-order Fantasies from Metric's website starting on March 2 will instantly receive an MP3 file of lead single "Help I'm Alive," which you can hear on their MySpace page. The song was the first that singer/keyboardist Emily Haines wrote during a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina she took to end a spate of writer's block, she says in this video clip:

Fantasies was produced by Shaw and Juno Award winner Gavin Brown (Billy Talent, Three Days Grace) at Shaw's Giant studio in Toronto and at Bear Creek, a farmhouse studio outside Seattle. It was mixed by Grammy Award nominee John O'Mahoney (Coldplay, The Strokes) at New York City's Electric Lady Sound Studios.

Producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Travis) has asked Metric to contribute the unreleased "Black Sheep" to Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, a film by Shaun Of The Dead director Edgar Wright that should premiere next year.

Haines, Shaw, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key have no tour dates scheduled yet, but will no doubt be active in promoting Fantasies following its release.

Here are the songs on Fantasies:

"Help I'm Alive"
"Sick Muse"
"Satellite Mind"
"Twilight Galaxy"
"Gold Guns Girls"
"Gimme Sympathy"
"Collect Call"
"Front Row"
"Blindness"
"Stadium Love"