Metric's Fantasies Revealed Live In Toronto

I'd never seen Holy Fuck before, and was eager for their electro-rock assault. They ripped through primarily instrumental dance numbers with the fervour of a punk band, using a mass of synths, keyboards, effects pedals, heavy bass and raging drums as their weapons of choice.

It all seemed to fly over the heads of the collected Metric fans, though. A far better scenario would've been for all those stick-in-the-muds to show up an hour later so I could've had more room to bust some moves on the dance floor to Holy Fuck's uninhibited party rock.

It's hard to fault the fans' single-minded focus, though. This show doubled as the first official Toronto concert to support last week's release of Metric's fourth studio album, Fantasies, and the band played almost every track off the new record. They opened with "Twilight Galaxy" and closed with "Stadium Love."

The new material clearly moves away from the spikey dance pop of old favourites "Dead Disco" and "Monster Hospital" by upping the synthesizer and roughing up the vocals. Singer Emily Haines' usually sweet voice still maintains its flair, but it's surrounded by bolder sounds and rhythms on the new material courtesy of drummer Joules Scott-Key, guitarist James Shaw and bassist Josh Winstead.

Sadly, Metric didn't play my favourite song, "Love Is A Place," but the abundance of songs from the new record made up for it. Fantasies is so full of hits, especially "Gold Guns Girls" and "Sick Muse," that seeing it live skyrocketed the album into first place in my Metric/Emily Haines collection.

This is the group's biggest release yet, and this performance showed a side of Metric I hadn't seen before. They were as solid as the two brass cheetahs they had on stage. As Haines left, she said, "Don't forget to fix the world."

She could have said, "Don't forget to buy the album," because the record perfectly mirrors everything Metric are live: intelligent, unique and immensely talented.