Pagans in Vegas

After releasing two albums that turned Metric into an arena-filling indie rock band, with a sound designed to reach the very back rows, the band scaled back both their ambitions and approach on their sixth record, 2015's Pagans in Vegas. Kicking off with the clipped and swaggering "Lie Lie Lie," which sounds like a distant cousin of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," Emily Haines and the band seem less interested in being epic this time out. The less bombastic arrangements and the attention to details of sound mean the songs don't have the same overblown feeling, which cuts two ways. It's a bit of a letdown to anyone who loved how huge the band sounded on their last two records, but it also allows Metric a chance to experiment a little and try to connect on a more personal level. In fact, the weakest parts of the album occur when the band do try to fill out their sound with giant choruses. While none of the songs are actively bad, they can seem a little forced and almost rote in comparis