The Canadian quartet Metric have been on the road tirelessly over the last few years. After the critically acclaimed LIVE IT OUT album released in 2005, they opened for the Rolling Stones at New York's Madison Square Garden, conquered the stage at the renowned Coachella Festival in 2006, and played several sold-out tours in Europe and the USA. Now the band can sit back and think about the eagerly awaited fourth album. In the meantime, frontwoman Emily Haines has released her debut solo album KNIVES DON'T HAVE YOUR BACK and another EP FREE TO A GOOD HOME?. Last summer, Groenland Records - after numerous requests from fans - had the honor of releasing Metric's debut album GROW UP AND BLOW AWAY from 1999 for the first time.

The four members of Metric - the aforementioned Emily Haines, guitarist Jimmy Shaw, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key - are currently working at Toronto's Giant Studios (which is owned by Jimmy Shaw and Sebastien Grainger of Death From Above 1979's, among others). However, they started writing new material in November 2006 at Bear Creek Studios north of Seattle. Not like before, when Shaw and Haines arrived with finished songs and the rest of the band just put the finishing touches on them, but for the first time together. The resulting album will therefore be the result of a closed working process in which all four members write songs together in one room.

Haines says: "Our approach to composition has been very spontaneous." Furthermore, the choice of location also had a big influence on the music: "Being isolated in the woods at Bear Creek helped to inspire the vibe for these first songs that we wrote together. We went for a warm sound, using a lot of vintage instruments." The songs created in the Gaint Studios sound completely different accordingly.

Haines explains: "We found that in the new sessions here in Toronto, the writing went in a much more electronic, beat-driven direction. One of the major changes was that bassist Josh Winstead started writing our basslines on the synth rather than on the bass, which completely changed the tone of the new material." Shaw and Winstead also swapped instruments, with Shaw writing the basslines and Winstead writing the guitar parts. "The Giant sessions involved a lot of sonic experimentation," adds Haines. The new album should be finished by the end of this year.