Metric are lightening up. A little. While the Toronto-based band's music has always leaned toward the upbeat-- shock-treatment new wave, dance, and rock-- its worldview is usually anything but. Whether singer and main lyricist Emily Haines is railing against war ("Succexy"), stagnant art ("Dead Disco"), or an increasingly overbearing world ("The Police and the Private"), she always seems to be railing against something. But on upcoming fourth album Fantasies (out April 14), the band took a different angle. "With this record we wanted to convey something other than a very meticulous list of what's wrong with everything," Haines told me last week. "I was a bit out of my element."Haines and guitarist-producer Jimmy Shaw were in good spirits when we met in a comically large, dark-wood-smothered conference room in downtown Manhattan. Enjoying the brief limbo between finishing their album and waiting to tour behind it, they were excited to be living normal lives for the time being-- grocery shopping, making soup, going to see friends' bands. The two have a tried-and-true chemistry-- whenever Haines would start expounding on the internal philosophies behind her art, Shaw would graciously deflate the potential for pretension. "Hard to be soft, tough to be tender," goes new single "Help, I'm Alive". Metric's balancing act goes even further: indie or mainstream, hopeful or wary, political or sexy. Right now, Metric are trying to be all those things at once-- they take their work seriously, but they'll still answer an idiotic question about whether a cat could take down a dog in a fight.Pitchfork: I feel like Metric is in this odd space as a band-- your live show is somewhat of a spectacle in the typical rock'n'roll sense, but your lyrics come from more of an indie rock perspective that often critiques the typical rock'n'roll lifestyle.Emily Haines: We're probably outsiders looking in at indie rock more than anything else. [laughs] Jimmy Shaw: I totally know what you mean, though. It seems like there are bands that sing about giant, general themes as they walk into a giant, general room. We don't do that, and there's a contradiction in it. That's what's makes it interesting-- the idea that we could be in a medium that's usually full of stuff that only goes skin deep and be the band that's actually saying something else. There's always going to be something that catches your ear. You can either stick with that or start to discover things with deeper meanings.Pitchfork: I recently saw the Killers, who aim to make big songs for big rooms. Are you ever tempted to try to something like that? JS: We've been tempted to go a lot of different directions. But every time we do something that's not natural, nobody buys it, starting with us. We'll try to write a song that's more indie or more mainstream than usual and within 10 minutes, it's like, "I can't listen to this."EH: And I can't sing it in the studio-- literally. My throat seizes up and the band is like, "Okay! I guess that song's not gonna happen."Pitchfork: During the making of Fantasies, was there a moment when you tried something new and it didn't work?JS: We did the song "Gimme Sympathy" about four different ways. We did a full-band recording, and it just [didn't] feel right. At the end of the day, you sit in front of the speakers and you're like, "Yay, I love my life and what I'm doing," or, "What am I doing?" It's a little moment of truth-- whether you relate to your own music or not.EH: All four of us are really open-minded and have a pretty extensive love of music in all different genres. I don't think any of us really listen to anything that's like the music that we make. [Bassist] Josh [Winstead] will always show up with Melt Banana tracks, and he wants us to somehow bring that energy-- and we're like "all right!" It's part of what's legitimately fun about being in this band.With "Gimme Sympathy", we wrote it on an acoustic guitar, but when we put the whole band behind it, I suddenly had a moment where I felt like Shania Twain. [laughs] You can't predict that! I'm singing the same thing, but suddenly it turns into something completely different.Pitchfork: So that Shania Twain moment didn't feel good.EH: That's not okay, I can't go for that. [laughs]Pitchfork: Were there any potentially over-the-top stage show props you've considered over the years?JS: On our last tour across Canada, we were in rehearsal and this guy was testing around with this eye-- like a full human eye-- on this light curtain behind us. I was like, "That's fucking creepy."EH: I approved it! I thought you knew I approved it.JS: No. I went out before the encore just to look at the crowd and was like, "The fucking eye?! Oh my god."EH: [laughs] I'm sorry.JS: There's such a weird line between doing something really cool and doing something unbelievably cheesy. This is a thing that I respect but don't full-on love about the indie aesthetic: Most of the time, the only way to stay cool is to do nothing on stage.EH: Just wear the shirt that you slept in last night.JS: Exactly. It's very safe-- a rejection of trying things that might make you come across differently. We wanna try things, so there's gonna be a moment here or there where it's like, "I kinda missed that one." I'd rather go down that way. Lots of amazing artists have put out records that are unlistenable. There are some bad Neil Young records. There are 20 unlistenable Stones records. Van Morrison only made one great album-- and he's a fuckin' legend!Pitchfork: This reverts back to the Killers show-- I'm not sure if they're great at managing that line between cheesy and awesome.JS: Yeah, like "Is he human..."EH: "...or is he just a dancer?"JS: I think that's one one of the worst things I've ever heard.EH: That lyric is really bad. But it's a very well-crafted song. I'm glad we're talking about this because I think about it a lot, too. The idea of spectacle versus the authenticity of indie rock. It's like, spectacle is shallow, and pretending no one is looking at you is authentic. I agree with that sometimes, but I find the people and shows I really admire don't strictly adhere to the idea of the invisible self.I think Franz Ferdinand is an example of a band that knows what they're doing-- they understand the function of music in people's lives. There are many functions, but when it comes to a concert it's about performance. If the same people at a show were standing on a subway together, they'd be uncomfortable with their shoulders hunched. But because music is playing and this feeling is in the room, you can have this incredible communion. That usually happens at shows where the performers are putting themselves beyond themselves.Pitchfork: Emily, it seems like the lyrics on Metric albums and your solo album are often longing for another lifestyle that's less structured. Do you think that's just a "grass is greener" type of thing or did you ever think about taking a longer break from touring and recording?EH: It's not about wanting to take a break. It's about what to do with the fact that you're disappointed with the world. It's pretty much the question of our generation. I understand the decision to be like, "I'm fucking out. I don't want anything to do with mainstream culture." That's like my family, and it's pretty much the identity of Canada-- it's what I loved about growing up there. But I just can't do that. And yet I've never been someone capable of doing, in show business terms, the kind of thing that you've gotta do to be a bona fide superstar. I know exactly what those terms are, and I've rejected them since I was 16.So I want to live in this big communal, utopian world... I'm an Aquarius! [laughs] At the same time, I wouldn't feel comfortable if I wasn't representing where I come from. I often feel like I'm in the Woody Allen movie The Purple Rose of Cairo, where they superimpose themselves into the films. As a band, that's what we do [in] life. You try to go out and be courageous to the world, but no matter where you are, it's as if your true self is superimposed into those environments.Talking about this feels a bit like thinking about your own brain, and I try not to do that too much because it gives me a cramp. JS: That made total sense... I've known you for a while, though.Pitchfork: Metric are known for spiking their music with a fair amount of progressive politics. Where were you guys on election night?JS: I was in Toronto at my studio with Broken Social Scene. Brendan [Canning] and Kevin [Drew] were with me, we were just fucking around. And I was like, "Guys, we've gotta go outside. Something is happening right now." Brendan was like [grumbles] "Really? We know who's gonna win..." And I was like, "You're coming with me." So we walked across the street to the bar during the acceptance speech. Everyone was crammed. People were going fucking crazy. It was awesome.Pitchfork: So you guys were pretty confident about Obama's win?JS: If he didn't win, it would basically prove that a revolution is the only way to move forward. So I'm glad he won.EH: I don't think it would've been a revolution. I think it would've been a massive depression-- and I don't mean in economic terms. I mean that if all these people who managed to ditch their irony for a minute had lost, it would've been like [silly deep voice] "See, I knew it was all rigged, and it's stupid!" [laughs]JS: Nice voice.EH: Thanks. That's my nephew-- he's 12. He's got a mustache and he's freaking out because his voice is like four octaves lower than his friends'. We're trying to get him off of Slipknot now. I bought my six-year-old niece an iPod, and the first song she asked me to put on was "Sk8r Boi", which I took as a total personal jab. Then she wanted something by Pink, and I was like, "I'm drawing the line. That's not allowed."Pitchfork: Well, Pink is supposedly against frivolous pop stars.JS: While being a frivolous pop star.EH: It's great when a female artist can get into the popular realm and actually represent-- like M.I.A. She's really inspiring to me as a woman who's political and sexual. She's actually gotten away with being a hot musician-- women usually have to pick one or the other.Pitchfork: Assuming most of your album was finished before Obama was elected, do you now feel like you should go back and change anything?EH: For the first time in our musical careers, I can say that didn't happen. With this record we wanted to convey something other than a very meticulous list of what's wrong with everything, which has been my niche as the primary lyric writer. So I was a bit out of my element. [laughs]JS: I was getting drunk with this guy in the UK two years before we even started making this record, and he said, "I think what would be amazing for you guys to do is not tell us what's wrong with the world that we live in, but depict the world that we hope to live in." That's corrected us a little bit. I think that's why we ended up calling it Fantasies, because it's more about dreaming about the future. It's not necessarily the blueprint for a utopian society, but just letting go to the point where you let your imagination run a little bit.EH: It also qualified because I think it has a total dark and sinister and potentially sexual reading. That's the test for album titles-- it has to be a prism. It's a strict entry process. I think I tried to get a prism as the album cover at one point. Does that ring a bell?Pitchfork: In the last song on the album, "Stadium Love", lyrics like "spider versus bat" propose Animal Planet-style face-offs. In that spirit, who would you want to win in a battle between, say, a dog and a cat?JS: I'd like to see a cat get a dog in a headlock. Like Garfield and Snoopy going at it. Then again, I'd feel bad for Snoopy.EH: Yeah, I was with you before you said Snoopy.Pitchfork: Snoopy's a very sympathetic character.EH: Of course, I'm going to take this opportunity to tell you about the incredible depth of those lyrics! The visual came from Jesus in the desert, as if I saw what he would see. It was not just that the animal world is going insane. It's that all the spectators are betting on the results and they're also engaged in their own altercations. The line of spectator and participant is completely blurred.JS: I think they call that a fuck down...EH: ...or a stock market. Actually, the NHL already requested to use it during games. I think I said yes, by the way.JS: Really?EH: Well, they use "Song 2" by Blur.JS: Yeah, but see what happened to Blur's audience?! We gotta keep the ball caps to a minimum.EH: I've never seen a ball cap at a Metric show. They take their ball caps off. They know.