Name: Strange Peace
Brand: SUB POP RECORDS
SKU: 151712566
Price: 13.91 USD
Availability: InStock

Performer Notes

Audio Mixers: METZ; Graham Walsh.
Recording information: Baskitball 4 Life; Electrical Audio; The Nursery; The Woodshed.
Illustrator: Jonathan Bauerle.
Photographer: Anna Edwards.
METZ seemingly set a new standard in taut, exacting ferocity on their second album, 2015's II. It was difficult to imagine a band hitting so hard with a similar degree of artful precision, but two years on, METZ have managed to beat themselves at their own game. Released in 2017, Strange Peace starts exploding the moment the opening cut, "Mess of Wires," kicks in, and for the next 37 minutes the band lays out a nonstop barrage of razor-sharp guitars, rumbling bass, and drums that go off like cannon fire. Strange Peace is a remarkably muscular piece of work, but all the more impressive is how musical this assault can be. Amidst the aural shrapnel of "Cellophane," one can discover a killer melodic hook and an irresistible shout-along chorus. The space between the ringing guitar lines in "Caterpillar" suggests these guys learned a lot from cutting a split single with Mission of Burma. The relatively languid tempo of "Sink" allows guitarist Alex Edkins to present some finely dotted jangle alongside his clouds of distorted noise. And the brief "Escalator Teeth" reveals METZ could actually boogie if they put their minds to it (though they're not going to do that for more than 47 seconds). Most of the time, Strange Peace delivers the same degree of bone-shattering fury that has marked their previous work, but as songwriters, METZ continue to evolve, and from a technical standpoint, Edkins, bassist Chris Slorach, and drummer Hayden Menzies have gotten stronger, tighter, and more intuitive. And if there were ever a band destined to be recorded by Steve Albini, it's METZ, and Albini's engineering on these sessions allows the guitars and drums to be appreciated as individual entities as well as part of an all-out firestorm. It's hard to imagine where METZ can go after pushing their sound and skills into the red zone as they have on Strange Peace, but with their third album, they've left no doubt that they're one of the most singularly powerful rock bands in North America, and you ignore them at your peril. ~ Mark Deming

Professional Reviews

Alternative Press - "Underground rock icon Steve Albini was enlisted to capture the Canadian trio's fury with glorious results."

Paste (magazine) - "It's refreshing to know there are bands like METZ putting out such quality rage like the 11 songs on this most exceptionally enthralling hello for today's youth to thrash along to..."

Album: Strange Peace
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Mess of Wires	More Info...
2)	Drained Lake	More Info...
3)	Cellophane	More Info...
4)	Caterpillar	More Info...
5)	Lost in the Blank City	More Info...
6)	Mr. Plague	More Info...
7)	Sink	More Info...
8)	Common Trash	More Info...
9)	Escalator Teeth	More Info...
10)	Dig a Hole	More Info...
11)	Raw Materials	More Info...

Album: Strange Peace
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Mess of Wires	More Info...
2)	Drained Lake	More Info...
3)	Cellophane	More Info...
4)	Caterpillar	More Info...
5)	Lost in the Blank City	More Info...
6)	Mr. Plague	More Info...
7)	Sink	More Info...
8)	Common Trash	More Info...
9)	Escalator Teeth	More Info...
10)	Dig a Hole	More Info...
11)	Raw Materials	More Info...