REVIEW: Metronomy Strips Away the Glamour with ‘Small World’
☆ BY JANET HERNANDEZ ☆
ON A 17-TRACK ALBUM WITH STANDOUT SONGS — 2019’s Metronomy Forever includes “Salted Caramel Ice Cream” and “Sex Emoji,” as frontman Joe Mount showcases exactly what he’s known for: electro-indie production and those danceable beats that propelled the band to stardom from the late aughts through the 2010s. But only a Metronomy enthusiast or casual NME reader would know that Mount made the album after moving to the countryside and settling into fatherhood. The sonic elements and lyrical themes are no indicators of his momentous life changes, and it’s not what Mount has ever set out to do. “There is thought behind [the lyrics], but I don’t sit down and write things out,” he told Paste. “I don’t work into lyrics in a literary way.”
Small World, the band’s latest release, is not brimming with the heart-on-my-sleeve songwriting that indie’s biggest acts have popularized (read: Big Thief), but Mount strips away the glamor to reveal something a bit more honest. Whether it's an artistic endeavor or a reaction to the times we’re in, Metronomy’s seventh studio album is their most lyrically open work to date. Their single “Things will be fine” is a snapshot of someone trying to protect a loved one for as long as they can, reassuring them that everything is OK, songwriting that is evocative of the lengths a parent would go to shelter a child. But that balmy warmth falters and dissipates by the closing tracks. With “I have seen enough,” Mount reaches the limit to which he can exert himself for another person. The singer is watching TV, but needs to step away. The situation is too much weight to bear; a solution is out of reach.
As Mount wades in existentialism, he can’t help but poke fun at the band’s own impermanence, as he’s done in the past. A track with the title “It’s good to be back” begs the question, Is Metronomy betting on a comeback? Could album #7 spearhead a Metronomy resurgence? Mount’s tongue-in-cheek songwriting isn’t totally lost. Neither is his expertise for arranging songs about love: sunny piano melodies contrast perfectly against melancholy lyrics; the guitar bridge on “Love Factory” soars.
Across two decades and a handful of albums and EPs, Metronomy has explored it all. Yet Small World feels like a new venture: a feat for a band that’s logged this much time and experience. Mount has more to share about the human experience this time, and Metronomy fans — many of whom have grown with the band — will likely appreciate the introspection.
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