It is Summer ’08 that puts Metronomy in the history books for me. It is a coming-full-circle and a departure from expectations. It is a rock album to dance to––or twitch to.
For an album title, Summer ’08 is bizarrely self referential to Metronomy’s chaotic origins in the late aughts and to the last summer before everything was understood in terms of ’08. This album is patently nostalgic and patently goofy in a way that is uniquely Joseph Mount’s. It is a carefully and painstakingly crafted masterpiece seeking the feeling of care-freeness and aloofness. It’s crystallized production and vague echoing of Nights Out and Pip Paine: Pay the £5000 You Owe (the two first Metronomy albums with bare-bones production and aestheticized roughness) show that Mount is still punk in his own way and still wants to challenge notions of underground, musical escape, and cool-ness. It is also evidence that the plastic and the bubblegum can have important voices in these discussions today.
As is always my experience listening to Metronomy, upon first listen this album was too abrasive, too textured, and a little bit annoying. It was a bit spiteful, like Mount wanted the listeners to say “garbage” before they came crawling back out of some vague and destined audio-posthumous curiosity. Even after five albums I still fall for this every time. I have never liked Metronomy on first listen and if it weren’t for high school friends who were such loyal fans, I might not have have given ’08 the chance it deserves.
I learned to love ‘08 in some subway station in the city––where I was listening to the album for one of the first times and felt myself wanting to visibly twitch along to a misplaced snare hit in the intro to “Old Skool.” Later in the same song, Mike D.’s (yes, from the Beastie Boys) scratch became so infectious thereafter that then I knew Mount had done it again––he had created a understatedly catchy album for those who had the patience to hear it out. It just involved a little too-much ear training, which I happen to appreciate anyway.
With that scratch solo the snare suddenly becomes a dog’s bark-sampled, and the feel dives head-first into the realm of surreal disco. A “wall of sound” outro-chorus of “ye-yeah yeah yeah” takes the track back into a straighter feel and anticipates the swing of “16 beat” (a track presumably named after a pre-set on Mount’s drum machine). “Back Together” and “Miami Logic” together capture the album’s suspension between Mount’s past and present, and are wildly groovy and alive in the meantime. “Miami Logic” features some of the best vocal production I have heard that really emphasizes breath as a means of expression. My lungs actually feel short of breath when Mount hyperextends his diaphragm. “Back Together,” the album’s opener, reintroduces a favorite character from Mount’s early work, his falsetto heroine (who apparently never goes on a date with him despite much musical suiting). This is both a timbral and conceptual reference to Nights Out and it couldn’t be more welcome to my ears. This album is much more grounded than English Riviera, too, which is of course an album that plays brilliantly with self-obsession, elitism, and provincialism, and thereby was probably never meant to be grounded anyway, but the difference is of importance nonetheless.
The clearest single on the album is “Hang Me Out To Dry,” performed with Robyn. Robyn’s voice steals the show and is what initially drew me to the album. With time, though, the track has become my least favorite on the LP, which is, of course, not to say it’s no good. It’s just too easy when standing up against the rest of the album, and the dancing it might inspire hasn’t proven to make people move compellingly when I have played this on deserving speakers at shows and parties. All that said, it might still be the most compelling when listened to on headphones.
Another star track on ’08 is “Night Owl,” but it only stands out a little bit, as the album’s B-side comfortably carries one’s attention to the magnificent quasi-closer “Love’s Not an Obstacle.” The actual closer, “Summer Jam” behaves like packing peanuts; it gets the album to the ten-track mark but only comes off as superfluous.
The long track-intros on the B-side are a downside that likely stems from some experimentation done during the Love Letters sessions. They really tempt the trigger-finger on those pre-inclined to fast-forward or skip. For a group of songs that could pack a punch together, the droning intros come off as unfocused and amateur.
Overall, Summer ’08 is my favorite release by Metronomy since Nights Out. It is just as challenging, abrasive, and ultimately rewarding. It is also perfect music for driving, or playing with good subwoofers, or on nice headphones in public spaces if you want to look like an iPod commercial circa summer ’05. This album is a refreshing commentary on lightness and fun in a time when such concepts are hardly present in music, and it doesn’t let you forget that these feelings aren’t real right now.