Album Review: METZ - Strange Peace

For their third album Canadian punk trio Metz decamped to Chicago and recorded live off the floor to tape with the inimitable Steve Albini.

The veteran sound wrangler perfectly captured the band's onstage intensity while still allowing them to expand their already abrasive aesthetics. The songs are caustic and pummelling and at first almost devoid of melody - tunes rising through the murk with subsequent listens - with the three members seeming to attack their instruments with full ferocity rather than using finesse to coax sounds, and the results are both wildly discordant and weirdly soothing. A strange peace indeed.