Exactly a year ago, Canadian synthpop mainstays Metric returned after a four-year absence with the glittering new-rave opus Formentera, a record we now know was the first installment of a two-part series. Formentera II was announced today on that first record’s anniversary, with an alt-dance single called “Just the Once” landing ahead of the sequel’s October 13 release via Metric Music International/Thirty Tigers.
Leaning further into Francophone electronic sounds from the era Metric came up in as heard in the work of Air and Daft Punk, “Just the Once” marks a clean break from the intense electro-post-punk of the band’s Fantasies era as they venture into the realm of playful nu-disco. Well, vocalist Emily Haines has another word for it: “The only way I can describe ‘Just the Once’ is to call it ‘regret disco,’” she shared in a press statement. “It's a song for when you need to dance yourself clean.”
Expanding on this thought, she continued: “Beneath the sparkling surface, there’s a lyrical exploration of a simple word with many meanings. Once is a word that plays a game of opposites. Once can mean once-upon-a-time and refer to a moment in the past, or it can mean someday, once something happens. And as for doing something only once versus doing something once in a while, well, I think we all know how vast the difference is between the two.”
Check out the gauzy video for the track below, and pre-order Formentera II here.
