Listen to "The Fatal Gift", a new track by Metric

However, that stony facade has crumbled lately, and now we've got a brand new Metric track to gobble up. "The Fatal Gift" is a tremendously dark paean to corrupt materialism, existentialist ideals and modern society. It's a leaden morsel that'll sit like a boulder in your brain, with Emily Haines crooning an anti-consumerist mantra: "all the things you own, they own you..."

Despite that, her delicate timbred vocals, gently-simmering keys and reverb-doused percussion are simple, beautiful and incisive.

Explaining the track in a news post, the Haines writes:

"Last year at this time, we were staggering home from our last leg of touring Synthetica, and we were beyond ready for a hard won year off. “This time, it will be a REAL year off!”, we proclaimed, swearing we would not go straight into making another album as soon as we had unpacked our bags. And yet, here I am, writing this letter to you from the studio, fully immersed in fresh music and somewhat amazed that we’ve managed to keep on loving what we do for this long.

So much has gone down this year but I’m feeling surprisingly refreshed and excited. I was really enjoying not having to care what happened next and then by accident we made something new. Meanwhile, the internal voice that constantly highlights my flaws, ignores my accomplishments and only reminds me what I can’t do seems to have worn itself out and quit. It may be time to put my heart back on my sleeve where it belongs, but that is often easier said than done.

What the hell, I’ll start now with the song below, “The Fatal Gift.” It doesn’t really sound at all like anything else we’re doing and stands alone. It’s unfinished but I like it enough the way it is to play it for you now. The question is, did I accidentally write a dark Christmas carol last summer? Looks like we’re about to find out.

xo emily"

This track follows swiftly after the release of Haines' recent "Lightning Strikes", a new song for GoldieBlox, a toymaker that aims to get mor girls engaged in the world of engineering.

Listen below to "The Fatal Gift".