Metz - Atlas Vending (LP)

In October 2020, Toronto’s METZ tore back into our lives with their fourth LP, Atlas Vending, on Sub Pop. Guitarist and singer Alex Edkins, bassist Chris Slorach, and drummer Hayden Menzies tracked it with producer Ben Greenberg and engineer Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, a studio that loves big drum rooms and high-pressure guitars. You can hear the space at once. It has that live electricity METZ chase on stage, but with more shape and color than they let in on their early blitzkriegs.

METZ built a rep on relentless noise-punk, yet this record moves with intent rather than just velocity. Hail Taxi is the tip-off. It still snarls, but the hook cuts through the grit and hangs around after the feedback fades. Blind Youth Industrial Park does the opposite trick, dragging you into a conveyor-belt churn before snapping the chorus tight around your ears. Framed by the Comet’s Tail hits like a runaway shopping cart, guitars skidding sideways while Menzies keeps it squarely in the pocket. And then there is A Boat to Drown In, which closes the album by blooming into a long, tidal finale that flirts with shoegaze over a pummeling rhythm. It feels earned, a release after 30 minutes of coiled wire.

Part of that lift comes from the way Greenberg and Manchester frame the band. Guitars grind and fizz, but you can trace each part, and the low end has a wet concrete heft that makes even the quieter passages feel dangerous. Edkins is not buried, either. He still yelps and strains, but the melodies peek through, the way they occasionally did on Strange Peace, their 2017 set tracked with Steve Albini in Chicago, only now they are more deliberate. Atlas Vending reads like a band doubling down on impact while giving themselves permission to breathe.

The themes land harder because of that space. METZ write about frantic modern routines, about pressure building in private rooms, about trying to be a human in a system that does not care. You can hear the clock-watching in the clipped cadences and the small explosions in the choruses. This is not a “cleaned up” METZ, just one with new angles for the same fists. The band talked around release time about wanting to make their most dynamic record, and that is what you get. Not softer, smarter.

As for how it plays at home, Atlas Vending vinyl does right by the details. The drums feel enormous without turning to mush, and the feedback halos around the riffs rather than collapsing into a brick. If you are hunting for METZ vinyl, grab this first, then circle back to their self-titled debut and Strange Peace to hear the through-line. METZ albums on vinyl tend to be sturdy, and this one begs for volume. If you are crate-digging at a Melbourne record store, it is the copy you flip to the front just to dare the next person to buy it. And if you need to buy METZ records online, this is the title that will justify the shipping, even if you are ordering with a stack of vinyl records Australia shops recommend to thicken the parcel.

It is easy to talk about noise bands like sledgehammers, but METZ have always been closer to precision tools. Atlas Vending just makes that precision impossible to miss. The trio lock in, lean into a riff, then twist the screws half a turn further than you expect. When Hail Taxi breaks into its chorus you can almost see the grin, and when A Boat to Drown In lifts off, it feels like a band that has finally figured out how to stretch time without losing the thread. There are no wasted minutes, no slack. It is one of those records that remind you why this band inspires such loyalty in the first place.

If you have been following since the basement-show days, this album feels like the payoff. If you are new to them, it is a clean entry point. Either way, Atlas Vending is the sound of METZ aiming higher and hitting the target, the kind of record that sends you back to the start as soon as the needle lifts. And if you are the type who measures music by how it shakes a room, get this on your turntable. METZ vinyl was built for that.