Metric

Metric is a favorite in the star-studded list of Broken Social Scene satellites (a group that includes the likes of Stars, Feist and the Weakerthans, to name a few), successfully orbiting the collective with frontwoman Emily Haines' particular brand of glossy electro. Metric has been nearly silent since the release of 2005's Live It Out, but its newest album, Fantasies, displays the slick presentation characteristic of the group's urbane, modern pop sound (a little bubble gum, a lot of cocaine). True to form, Metric's newest effort is a cynical meditation on death and consumerism and is polished to pop perfection. But it seems that Haines and company have tapped into a bit more of a darker, ambient, dreamlike fugue; in a twisted fusion Metric has attempted for years, Fantasies successfully manages to sound simultaneously disillusioned and euphoric, and it rocks out at the right exact moments.