For more than two decades, Metric have thrived on the tension between precision and chaos. Their new single “Time Is A Bomb” leans hard into that balance, arriving as the second preview of their forthcoming tenth album Romanticize The Dive, due April 24.
Driven by a serrated pulse of guitars and synths, the track moves with the kind of restless urgency that has long defined the band’s catalogue. Emily Haines delivers the hook with a mix of resolve and provocation: “Time is a bomb that’s ticking faster / I love to flirt with disaster.” It’s a lyric that reads like a manifesto for living in the moment, even when the clock is loudly counting down.
Haines frames the song as a reflection on modern life’s heightened awareness of mortality. In her words, the recent cultural obsession with wellness is partly a reaction to that pressure. Beneath the surface, the song explores the push and pull between wanting to hold time still and wanting to burn through it at full speed. The result is a track that crackles with adrenaline while still carrying a hint of self-interrogation.
For their tenth studio album, Metric returned to the city where the band first formed: New York City. Recording at the storied Electric Lady Studios, the group reunited with producer Gavin Brown, whose work helped shape earlier albums Fantasies and Synthetica. Co-production comes from guitarist and songwriter Jimmy Shaw alongside Liam O’Neil, while longtime collaborator John O’Mahoney handles mixing duties.
That return to Electric Lady carries a symbolic weight. The sessions reconnect Metric with the chaotic energy of the early-2000s indie explosion that first propelled them into the spotlight, while placing that spirit within the cultural landscape of 2026.
The band remains unchanged at its core: Haines on vocals and keys, Shaw on guitar and production, Joshua Winstead on bass, and Joules Scott-Key behind the kit. Over twenty years together, the quartet has become one of Canada’s most enduring indie-rock success stories, choosing independence over major label deals and steadily expanding their artistic reach.
Beyond Metric, Haines and Shaw have long been part of the orbit around Broken Social Scene, appearing across the collective’s albums and contributing to its defining songs, including the generation-shaping “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl.” Haines’ own career has also intersected with figures as varied as Lou Reed and producer Hal Willner, collaborations that underline her reputation as one of indie rock’s most distinctive voices.
Across film and television, Metric’s music has also travelled widely, appearing in projects ranging from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to the The Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack, as well as television staples like Grey’s Anatomy.
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