Metronomy: Small World (LP)

"It's Good To Be Back" - What better way to title his return after the corona-induced hiatus than with this phrase. That's what Metronomy chief songwriter, frontman, keyboardist and guitarist Joseph Mount thought, with the song announcing the band's new album "Small World" for 2022: "The name 'It's Good To Be Back' comes from part of me thinking, 'What's the lamest platitude people are going to say after the last two years?' but at the same time thinking about how true it will be and how it might feel to do things again." Meanwhile, he described the song as follows: "I remembered what it was like as a kid, sitting in the back seat of my parents' car and they'd play their music and I'd think 'this is terrible,' but there were one or two songs I liked. I thought it would be fun to make an album like that, and that's the song the kids might like. That's the 'cool' song." Fans of the British indietronic and electropop combo can now see for themselves if the song is really that cool. Metronomy describe the album "Small World" as a return to simple pleasures, nature and a partial embrace of more pared-down, songwriting sounds, while asking broader existential questions, "It feels at least a little rooted in the time it was made - 2020. Finding appreciation in nature and our roots, while re-evaluating the things we value as we get older, are all things that are part and parcel of the human experience: though it's all felt accelerated in this last year."