“

His studied cool, like a high-roller blowing smoke rings with overdone unconcern, is a dead giveaway. So, too, is the plinkety-plink of marimba keys, so high they make a sharp, brittle noise, like bones, as he sings those words.

“

I love Metric. Many people do, and justly so. But be aware that if you listen to them while reclining on the chipped enamel of your bath under a dim, fly-spotted bulb, you will feel like the protagonist of a twenty-minute short about heroin addiction, badly edited by a film student from Montreal.