Say what you will about Metric’s glossy, airtight take on synthesized pop — the band lives up to its name. On Synthetica, the Toronto four-piece continues to deliver icy, hook-driven tracks that seem to click into place. But rather than fall victim to overproduction, Synthetica does an impressive job at working with what Metric does best. Here frontwoman Emily Haines’s thin but affecting voice decries 21st-century living with songs about loneliness, reflections, and growing up “in the shadow of big screens” that play eerily well off the band’s electronic beats and guitar effects. Vocally, Haines stretches herself, too, channeling Billy Corgan one moment (“Speed the Collapse”) and a coy vixen the next (“Lost Kitten”). But as a whole, Synthetica works as a taut, dancey rumination on life in the digital world, computer effects included. Metric play KJEE’s Winter Round-Up at the Arlington Theatre on Monday, December 10. Visit thearlingtontheatre.com for info.

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