It’s wild to think that it was almost 20 years ago when Metric emerged with their debut album, Old World Underground Where Are You Now?. Songs like “Dead Disco” — and later on, “Help I’m Alive” — cemented the Canadian band’s role as a dynamic dance floor-ready rock and roll band, before the song “Black Sheep” appeared on Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, with Brie Larson famously delivering singer Emily Haines’ lyrics.
OK, enough history, because the prolific Metric is now set to release the 8th album in the band’s catalogue. Formentera arrives on July 8th and today, the band shared the sweeping new single, “Doomscroller.”
The 10-minute epic plays out like it belongs on the soundtrack to a twisted David Lynch film; its utopian industrial rock feel giving rise to feelings of dystopian digital world paranoia. The band says in a statement that it’s like a “high speed chase through the wild terrain of modern life.”
The video seesaws from dimly lit studio footage into vignettes from the world around them. But Haines says that, “These traces of life on earth that appear and disappear throughout the song subtly mirror the shifting moods of the music.” It fits congruently with the themes of Formentera, which Haines explains was shaped around, “this realization that it wasn’t even about an actual place anymore, it was about creating an escape for yourself in your mind because you’re powerless over so many things.”
Watch the video for “Doomscroller” above.
Formentera is out 7/8 via Metric Music. Pre-order it here.