Following the extreme good-ness of Fantasies, my hopes for this one were high; unfortunately, while it's perfectly serviceable, it's not as good as its predecessor. There's something less fizzing, less exciting about it, and Haines' voice seems somehow to have less conviction about it, though the good songs - "Youth Without Youth", "Speed the Collapse", "Nothing But Time" and the title track - are very good.
[Edit (4/8): Turns out I was too quick to dismiss Synthetica. I've kept on listening to it, initially because those good songs that jumped out at the start kept on being good, really good actually, and then as more of the album's tracks kept coming forward and getting stuck in my head - the glossy sheen of the record coexists with a bit of bite in just the way that they do in all of Metric's best moments...]
[Edit (4/8): Turns out I was too quick to dismiss Synthetica. I've kept on listening to it, initially because those good songs that jumped out at the start kept on being good, really good actually, and then as more of the album's tracks kept coming forward and getting stuck in my head - the glossy sheen of the record coexists with a bit of bite in just the way that they do in all of Metric's best moments...]
