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< Metronomy
Nights Out
words by Stuart Stubbs
Having lived with Metronomy’s (very) long awaited second album for the last four months (it’s original release date was penned for June, which was when ‘Nights Out’ first dropped onto our doormat), we have to admit that we’re a little red-faced. These days we wile away the hours to-ing and fro-ing about whether this album is our favourite of the year, or if Health or Foals have pipped it to the post. It remains too close to call; so faultless are the heart-felt electronics of this unique, dance concept record, despite what some emo-guitar-goon-with-ventricle-stains-on-their-sleeve may have you believe as they claim Metronomy’s computer love music to be ‘too cold’. And there was us, after first listen, hastily feeling disappointment at Joe Mount’s latest effort, writing it off as a missed opportunity.
At it’s very worst, perhaps ‘Nights Out’ is a grower, like all great records that outlive the milk you’re currently stocking. The blame – as far as we’re concerned – can be hung on Mount’s previous psychotic dancefloor wrecking ball, ‘You Could Easily Have Me’. So enthralled by its chuggings and skewed Moog chimes, we were expecting more of the same. Which is not what ‘Nights Out’ is. It’s a far cleverer beast than that; a carefully planned concept record , the theme being, as the title suggests, going out.
Mount and his two wingmen – Oscar and Gabriel, now that Metronomy are three – parp into preparations for hitting the town with the lethargic, gathering ‘Nights Intro’. Completely instrumental, it owes as much of its lazy charm to its oriental pluckings as it does to its underlying, fuzzy synth and processed beats that Metronomy are known for. Off the settee, things then quickly pick up as we realise that this isn’t about to be a spoon-feeding concept record in the slightest.
The popcorn pips of ‘The End Of You Too’ are soon met by Foals-esque, speckled guitar riffs and a harpsichord melody, seemingly marching with intend, perhaps into the night, perhaps back home after a break up, as its title leads us to believe. Because sometimes ‘Nights Out’ tells it like it is (usually when Mount spells it out for us with his half spoken lyrics, like throughout the lust-at-first-site in ‘Radio Ladio’, or the premature heartache that makes the confident ‘A Thing For Me’ a lasting favourite), but sometimes we’re asked to work for it.
A title and a spluttering of drums, synths, guitars and whirlings that, on occasion, are in fact reminiscent of ‘You Could Easily Have Me’ (we just can’t let it go, can we?) is all we’re given on tracks such as the apprehensive ‘On The Motorway’ and ‘Side 2’; pissed and stumbling, out done until determination turns it into something a little menacing.
And through all of these layered tricks, like a graduate of a degree in Hot Chip, ‘Nights Out’ has its pop hits too (and one in particular), as easily removed from an evening painting the town rouge as associated with it. ‘Heartbreaker’ alone could secure a Mercury nomination next year, just like ‘American Boy’ has done for Estelle this time around. It almost makes the remainder of Metronomy’s latest look second class, which of course it isn’t. It’s just difficult to not latch onto ‘Heartbreaker’ as soon as you first hear its bass intro threaten to wander off at a tangent before a continual creaking door forces you to swing this way and that. It’s the track that Mount sings the most, as the frontman hears of a friend’s broken heart and harbours enough decency to not distort his voice with pitch-shifter and suchlike. Intriguingly, he sounds as hurt as his chest-pained pal – “That girl’s no good for me and you, she hurts me too” – for one reason or another.
So, flush with the admission that we couldn’t have been more wrong about ‘Nights Out’, we can confidently say that this will be one of the records of the year. Its originality will make sure of that.
10/10 in stores Sept 8
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