Name: Metronomy: Love Letters
Brand: Because Music
SKU: 46634427
Price: 8.87 USD
Availability: InStock

Performer Notes

Personnel: Joseph Mount (vocals, guitar, bass guitar, drums); Airelle Besson, Daniel Zimmerman, Thomas De Pourquery (horns); Oscar Cash (piano, keyboards); Michael Lovett (keyboards); Olugbenga Adelekan (bass guitar); Anna Prior (drums); Jaelee Small, HowAboutBeth, Kenzie May Bryant (background vocals).
Audio Mixer: Ash Workman.
Recording information: Toe Rag Studios, London, UK.
Editor: Luke Oldfield.
Given the critical and commercial success of The English Riviera, Metronomy could have easily spent another album or two expanding on its polished, erudite pop. However, they're too mercurial a band to do the obvious thing. On Love Letters, they abandon their previous album's sleek precision for fuzzy analog charm. Metronomy recorded the album at London's Toe Rag studio, a fixture of British indie rock, and Joe Mount and company imbue these songs with the room's warmth and intimacy. Musically and emotionally, Love Letters is rawer than what came before it, trading breezy synth pop for insistent psych-rock and soul influences. The main carryover from The English Riviera is the increasing sophistication, and melancholy, in Mount's songwriting. Previously, his best songs were playful and ever so slightly emotional; on Love Letters, he flips this formula, penning songs filled with lost love, regrets, and just enough wit to sting. The album opens with three striking portraits of heartbreak: "The Upsetter" equals its distance with its urgency, capping it all with an achingly gorgeous guitar solo. "I'm Aquarius" traces the fallout of a star-crossed relationship impressionistically, with girl group-style "shoop doop"s almost overpowering Mount's reasons why it didn't work ("you're a novice/I'm a tourist"), as if memories of his ex crowd out everything else. "Monstrous" turns Metronomy's signature jaunty keyboards Baroque and paranoid, with a doomy organ that closes in when Mount sings "hold on tight to everything you love," and a counterpoint that captures the way loneliness and heartbreak circle each other. These songs set the stage perfectly for the desperate romance of "Love Letters" itself, which updates punchy, late-'60s Motown drama so well that it's easy to imagine the Four Tops singing it. Here and on "Month of Sundays"'s acid rock vistas, Metronomy's nods to the past feel more like footnotes than following too closely in anyone's footsteps. However, they sound more comfortable with their own quirks as well, giving more muscle to "Boy Racers" than their previous instrumentals, and more depth to "Reservoir," which is the closest it gets to a typical Metronomy song (if there is such a thing anymore). Confessional and insular, Love Letters is the work of a band willing to take pop success on their own terms and reveal a different -- but just as appealing -- side of their artistry in the process. ~ Heather Phares

Professional Reviews

Rolling Stone - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[The music] gets lusher as Joseph Mount reaches for his space-glitter falsetto. His zodiac kitsch in 'I'm Aquarius' picks up steam too..."

CMJ - "Full of inventiveness, the record noticeably tamps the tempos in order to reveal a more intriguing, if less catchy and quirky, melange of melodies that disclose yet another facet from Metronomy's array of sounds."

Album: Metronomy: Love Letters
#	Song Title		Time
1)	The Upsetter	More Info...	0:04
2)	I'm Aquarius	More Info...	0:04
3)	Monstrous	More Info...	0:04
4)	Love Letters	More Info...	0:05
5)	Month of Sundays	More Info...	0:03
6)	Boy Racers	More Info...	0:04
7)	Call Me	More Info...	0:04
8)	The Most Immaculate Haircut	More Info...	0:04
9)	Reservoir	More Info...	0:03
10)	Never Wanted	More Info...	0:04

Album: Metronomy: Love Letters
#	Song Title		Time
1)	The Upsetter	More Info...	0:04
2)	I'm Aquarius	More Info...	0:04
3)	Monstrous	More Info...	0:04
4)	Love Letters	More Info...	0:05
5)	Month of Sundays	More Info...	0:03
6)	Boy Racers	More Info...	0:04
7)	Call Me	More Info...	0:04
8)	The Most Immaculate Haircut	More Info...	0:04
9)	Reservoir	More Info...	0:03
10)	Never Wanted	More Info...	0:04