Knocked My Nights Out

Metronomy - Nights Out


I can say without a doubt, that Metronomy's latest offering, Nights Out, is the best thing I've heard all year. This album has changed the way I think about song structure, instrumentation, and music altogether.

Metronomy's last album was available for download on iTunes. However, Nights Out was, for some reason, only released in the UK, and has not been put up on any download service. I enjoyed the last record so much, that I decided to put up the coin to import the disc. This proved to be fantastic decision.

Nights Out, according to Joeseph Mount, Metronomy's frontman (Mount has since recruited two friends, officially making Metronomy group) is "a half-arsed concept album about going out and having a crap time." The album starts with Nights Intro, a slow piece dripping with static that relies on chords and steady pace to set the mood. The sound snowballs, and by the end of the two and a half minute track, the sound scape has evolved into a broad clash of noise that alludes to a march out into the unknown. And so the night out begins.

Each track is radically different than the last. Mount endeavors to switch up the different instruments, synthetic or not, between each song. Furthermore, they all move into each other, never really giving the listener a chance to catch his breath. In a sense, the CD seems to be club hopping, never becoming complacent with it's current location. Keeping with the club theme, each song feels as if it secretly wants to be a dance number. Never before has an album inspired me to feel the need to dance around in public.

I also noticed how radically different Nights Out was from Pip Paine. On Metronomy's last album, Mount only sings on one track, and even then, his singing is altered by heavy distortion. Seven of Nights Out's twelve tracks have major vocal parts. Whereas Pip Paine was a well focused electronica album, Nights Out seems well focused in experimenting with the different sounds that make a person get up and move around. Yet, it's difficult to categorize the album as a dance record. It's as if Electronica went to a party, and individually slept with Jazz, Dance-Pop, and Modern Rock, to wind up pregnant 9 months later with no clue who the father is.

This album has remained well lodged in my ears ever since I opened the package. Combining it's perplexing, conceptual sound with an eager-to-please, get up and dance attitude, Metronomy's Nights Out may be about having a shitty time out on the town, but it certainly makes for a great night in listening. I feel indebted to label Nights Out the best entry in it's genre...whatever it is.

Favorite Tracks: "The End of You Too", "Radio Ladio", "My Heart Rate Rapid", "Holiday"