METZ - Up On Gravity Hill

Much like the shadowy rose that adorns the cover of this fifth album from the Canadian noiseniks, ‘Up On Gravity Hill’ is a curious and (eventually) overwhelmingly satisfactory juxtaposition of dark and light. Or to be more specific, heavy and light. Wasting no time as ever, double-headed opener ‘No Reservation / Love Comes Crashing’ is loud, pummelling and pleasantly dissonant, while a bluesy clang trundles by below the surface. A sludgy chug is paired with a soft, almost playground-like chant on ’99’, while in what’s likely a full-circle moment for the sound that made the reputation of METZ’s label, amid the push-pull tension of ‘Entwined (Street Light Buzz)’ sits a guitar lick that wouldn’t seem out of place on Blur’s self-titled (see too, the “na na nas” of ‘Wound Tight’, for that matter). The clever contrast is at its height on closer ‘Light Your Way Home’, where Black Mountain’s Amber Webber joins for the softest vocal line atop the record’s heaviest moment, but perhaps best of all is how direct the whole thing is, typified by ‘Glass Eye’, on which the outfit’s uncompromising sound brings sonic clarity while sporadic backing vocals offer classic ‘90s boyband echoes. A solid record.