Toronto-based JOVM mainstays METZ‘s fifth studio album Up on Gravity Hill is slated for an April 12, 2024 release on Dine Alone Records in Canada and on Sub Pop for the rest of the world. The album, which is the JOVM mainstays’ first album in four years was engineered by Seth Manchester and features guest appearances from Black Mountain‘s Amber Webber and string arrangements by composer Owen Pallett.
Long known for blowing out eardrums with explosively loud songs of joyous rage, the Canadian JOVM mainstays — Alex Edkins (vocals, guitar), Chris Slorach (bass) and Hayden Menzies (drums) — have, over the course of their past couple of albums have begun exploring ways of turning abrasiveness into atmospherics. The evolution of their sound is not only a reflection of the band’s maturity as humans and as musicians, but also a changed world that demands much more nuance and compassion to comprehend and survive. Up On Gravity Hill reportedly finds the band continuing to bend the raw power of rock music to its most delicate, intricate ends. The album’s material may arguably be their deepest, detailed and unyieldingly personal batch of songs — and their most beautiful to date.
To spotlight this evolution in their sound and approach, the Toronto-based outfit has shared two contrasting singles:
“99,” a stomping and noisy motorik chug of a song built around their long-held penchant for shout along worthy, mosh pit friendly hooks choruses that sounds subtly informed by Edkins’ work with Noble Rot. Directed by John Smith, the accompanying video features the members of the trio performing the song in hazy and scorching VHS fuzz and computer generated 3D renderings. The single and its accompanying video are incisive commentary and criticism on our consumerist hellscape.
“Entwined (Street Light Buzz)” is a woozy and swooning song that sees the trio retaining their penchant for power chord-driven, enormous, shout along friendly hooks and choruses with a gorgeous and meditative shoegazer-like bridge.
“These two songs couldn’t be more stylistically and thematically dissimilar,” METZ’s Alex Edkins says. “‘Entwined (Street Light Buzz)’ is a song about the deep connection humans can foster with one another and how we carry people with us forever, even after death. ‘99’ is about the scourge of corporate greed and bottom-line thinking that runs rampant in modern society. Anything for a buck is the message being sent to younger generations.”