Review | Metronomy – BBC Sessions Collection

Label: Because Music

By Charlie Pinhey

Indie-sleaze is being discussed a lot at the moment. As we drift further away from the noughties and the early teens, the genre defining era of guitar driven music is being remembered more and more fondly. Bands emerged such as The Libertines, Bloc Party and Foals, who built a rich catalogue and lore for fans to pour over and debate in barbershops and on the escalators between Topshop and Topman.

But one band who never parked in the same garage as the rest (their lyrics and videos often feature something to do with cars, so the analogy is appropriate) were Metronomy. In HMV, you’d have found their records in the electronica section, part of a smaller cross-section of bands bridging the gap between indie, pop and dance music.

With the release of Metronomy’s ‘Greatest Hits’ & ‘BBC Sessions’ collections, out now, I’m once again reminded just how integral the band were to this era and how much they have continued to hone innovative production techniques into the 2020’s, perhaps more so than anyone parked in said garage over the road.  

Spearheaded by musician and producer Joseph Mount, the ‘BBC Sessions’ is a collection of previously unreleased BBC live recordings between 2008 to 2019. The collection features an impressive seventeen track roster from seven of their albums; from the critically acclaimed ‘The Look’ from Mercury Prize-nominated ‘The English Riviera’ to the cult heroes on ‘Nights Out’ & ‘Pip Paine (Pay Back The Money You Owe)’.

Despite the ‘BBC Sessions’ collection being in relative chronological order, the tracks ooze unpredictability. A recording of ‘Heartbreaker’ kicks things off; the component parts bleed less into each other than on record and are given the freedom to explore more modulated textures, whilst keeping to the creaking woody backbeat.

Neural pathways reconnect in my head of watching ‘Heartbreaker’s music video where a schoolboy-looking Mount consoles a love-stricken Oscar Cash, as they drive around in a Honda Insight to cheer him up. Other videos weave in and out of my head; some don’t feature in either collection but easily could. From the Devo-inspired ‘Radio Ladio’ to the cramped mise-en-scene of ‘Love Letters’ and the lover’s spat played out in ‘Hang Me Out To Dry’, each have their own distinctly defined narratives and aesthetics.

During a 2009 recording of ‘On Dancefloors’, Mount’s voice wavers slightly and he pulls from a lower resonance area, making the screeching solo on keyboard much more melodramatic and impactful. In a later recording of ‘She Wants’ the bass stretches over far more of the track than on record, whilst Mount’s voice echoes around the BBC 6 studio allowing the angst to go up a gear, as the glottal sounding keys descend.

‘I’m Aquarius’ almost becomes a tearjerking celebration rather than a bitter love note, where trancey keys wash over the track to push it towards being a floor-filler. Then the floor-fillers come thick and fast with ‘Old Skool’, which has a renewed soulful swagger and the simultaneously grungier and zanier hits of ‘You Could Easily Have Me’ and ‘Lately’, both injecting some final touches of indietronica.

As I once again go from the top, and listen to the live collection again, I can’t help but flit further into Metronomy’s back catalogue, fitting songs and moods together like a jigsaw.

I end with ‘Things Will Be Fine’ from 2022’s ‘Small World’ which is also the eighteenth track on the ‘Greatest Hits’ record. The way ‘Things Will Be Fine’ finds itself between retro-soul and bedroom pop allows for a tapestry of emotions to be explored, meaning the track can mean different things on different days. I’ve listened to the song after passing exams and remembering a friend who I sadly lost, not long after going to watch Metronomy together. And, I suspect, as I listen to the ‘BBC Sessions’ again, those tracks too will become open books for interpretation.

The world needs bands like Metronomy, who are a constant reminder that music needs to evolve. From the sleazy to the soulful, from the indie to the irreplaceable, this band are everything. And if this is just the end of the beginning, as they wrote on Instagram, Mount and the rest of the band, have plenty left in the tank.