Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It’s a Small World after all, and the things we value have reasserted themselves beyond the realm of being granted. We find we have to fight for the dignity of what was once presumed, and this action is having not only a detrimental effect on our psyche, but it is forcing us to become more insular, more manipulated as we find ourselves comparing ever more to those around us, competing for resources that are denied unless you have the ear of an influential friend in Government or have the patronage that affords you being erased from court cases and the ensuing madness that comes from appearing to be absolved from any heinous crime.
The small world has become one of infuriating pocket sized scale, designed it seems at every turn that we are indebted to another because they know a friend of a friend; however it has shown us that the promise of looking at our lives through the lens of a magnifying glass we are able to see the big picture, one that is no longer modestly hidden from view, and indeed offers the opportunity, as Metronomy proudly showcase in their brand new album, to focus the attention on what we truly treasure, what makes us human and not consumers, what makes us part of nature, and not tearing it apart.
Small World is an album of sensual freedom, one that understands it has the power and influence in which to involve the listener in a realm of kindness, of not being reduced to stone faced diplomacy, but of also having the desire to be seen as more than a swagger in a storm.
Across tracks such as Things Will Be Fine, Loneliness On The Run, I Lost My Mind, Hold Me Tonight, and the album’s finale of I Have Seen Enough, Metronomy tackle the existential by examining the detail, and finding a whole new world in which they have created, and one in which all who practise modesty are enthused by its generated form, ambient beauty, and melody generated by a major sound.
An album that asks of the listener to not be downcast by how they appear to the others, a feeling of growth that stands large and which dwarfs those whose agendas and off kilter psyche insist that they genuflect to the ones who believe they have the world in their back pocket; for in this latest release by Metronomy they share with pleasure the world they have created.
Metronomy’s Small World is out now.
Ian D. Hall