Metric: Live At Metropolis

Just in time for the dead of winter, Metric offer up a couch-friendly alternative to standing in line outside a club in weather better suited to polar and/or grizzly bears. The DVD was filmed during a March 2006 tour stop at Montreal's Metropolis, where the band made short work of a 13-song smorgasbord of both old and (at the time) new. Jimmy Shaw's feverish guitar work and production have always served as the band's anchor, and both are in abundance here. The ploughman's lunch of video cuts, filters and effects heighten the frenzied mood and tempo of a typically fantastic show, which helps compensate for the conspicuous lack of a meaningful crowd presence. In the end, though, it's the music that counts and Live At Metropolis is a suitable surrogate to an actual in-the-flesh concert experience. Just don't look for much else on this bare-bones offering as there are no interviews or behind the scene stuff at all.