Metric's Fantasies Come Alive With Album

Metric's Emily Haines and James Shaw recently performed acoustic versions of "Twilight Galaxy" and "Front Row" from their fourth album, Fantasies, for Spin.com.

Haines and Shaw also talked to MTV VJ John Norris about making Fantasies, which is out in Canada on April 14 through Last Gang. The band will self-release the album in the U.S., which they said would help to better connect them with their fan base.

"The thing, too, that is exciting about it, for me, is that, in our meetings with people at conventional record labels, is they're just so afraid of the new technology and afraid of the new things that are happening and are trying desperately to hold on to something that is ultimately going," Haines says in the interview.

"So it's not like one thing or the other, or trying to manipulate it to control the marketplace or whatever. It's just like, what's convenient for our fans?"

Haines also spoke about writing most of the album in Argentina, and how she didn't write in a conventional way.

"There's this thing for me where I have to trick myself into thinking that I'm not writing. I basically tricked myself into thinking that I was never going to write another song, and it totally worked 'cause the parts that I wrote, I wrote them there."

Fans who pre-order Fantasies from Metric's website will receive an immediate digital download that includes the album version of lead single "Help I'm Alive," an acoustic version of "Gimme Sympathy" and a cover of Pink Floyd's "Nobody Home." They'll be emailed a link for the downloadable version of the album on March 31. Five different packages are available, ranging in price from $8.99 to $64.99.

"In addition to the straight up pre-order option we have also put together an extra-fantastic limited edition package for anyone who, like us, must have music at their fingertips at all times — in every medium in the known universe!," Haines wrote on the Metric site on Monday. "This includes special things we made that you can't get anywhere except from us directly.

"When the band was talking about what to include a lot of ideas came up -- giant Metric robot dolls, anyone? In the end, we agreed that we wanted to include work that would give our loyal fans an inside perspective."

Black-and-white photos of Metric in the studio and on the road and Haines' favourite works from a graffiti art collective called Hollywood In Cambodia that she discovered in Buenos Aires are also being offered.

"It's hilarious how the world works," Haines continued in her post. "Now that we can finally get major retailers to stock our records, they're all going out of business!

"And the fact is we would love it if you chose to get your Metric fix here first, where we can make things exactly how we want them without compromise and throw in extra music and high quality artwork for the hell of it. In a fucked up way, this is perfect. Wherever you decide to get your copy of FANTASIES... we wanna say thanks for sticking with us!

"This year is gonna rock like no other."

You can see and hear Metric rock at Edgefest on June 20 at Toronto's Downsview Park.