I was walking to work listening to the new Metric record — it’s great; more on that in a minute — and realized that "Help I’m Alive" could be sung by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: I tremble/ they’re gonna eat me alive/ if I stumble/ they’re gonna eat me alive/ help I’m alive/ Can you hear my heart/ beating like a hammer. It works up until you get to the lyric as long as you’re alive/ my regrets are few, which is pretty much the opposite of how KSM thinks, but still. Maybe that verse is written from the perspective of his interrogator: As long as you’re alive/ my regrets are few/ if my life is mine/ what shouldn’t I do?/ I get wherever I’m going/ I get whatever I need/ long as my blood keeps flowing/ and my heart keeps/ beating like a hammer. I know I said in December that the song "was either about cocaine addiction or significantly influenced by it," but that was before the release of the OLC memos.

And to update that December post now that I’ve heard the whole album: Imagine if Metric made a record in which "Poster Of A Girl" was the most uplifting song, and you have Fantasies. This is one bleak and barren landscape. Even the good-timey-Metric record closer "Stadium Love" is defined by imagery of animals fighting while men bet on the outcome. (And the record is called Fantasies, for crying out loud!) I don’t entirely take back thinking that it’s not much of a musical progression for them — the tempos and the staccato notes and the keys are all there, where you left them from Old World Underground and Live It Out — but want to revise and extend. It’s like the band got frustrated with their lack of progression and made a record influenced by that frustration. This isn’t derision. The limits of Metric — judged by the implicit premise that Bands Must Change Their Sound To Improve And Be Relevant — help advance its subject matter. If you like paranoia and hopelessness, this one’s for you.