Metric: GROW UP AND BLOW AWAY

This is a collection of songs from Metric before their current lineup as a quartet. Grow Up and Blow Away only features singer Emily Haines and guitarist Jimmy Shaw. The sound is remarkably different from their three recent albums, which are rockin' New Wave; Blow is electronic-pop. It's painfully evident that Haines and Shaw wanted to be famous; making music for the times. The songs here -- from the late nineties and early noughties -- hardly feature any guitar and sounds as if Pink and Moby collaborated on a throwaway side project (that is if Pink was a mezzo-soprano). Nonetheless, a few tracks could find a home on your iPod, like the lead and last tracks, "Grow Up" and "Soft Rock Stars". The third song, "Rock Me Now", is good too, though, with its male co-lead vocal, sounds as if Haines and Shaw were listening too much to Duran Duran's "Breath After Breath". Overall, not atrocious, but now awesome either. Save it for the rabid Metric fans.

2 outta 5 stars