Album Review: Automat by METZ

Automat's 12 tracks — worthy of a legit noise complaint — give new meaning to the term "summer bangers."   METZ are well-respected for their abrasive ruckus of atmospheric punk. This collection of non-album singles, B-sides and rarities serves as a reminder of how skilfully they've crafted and delivered it with unwavering power over the past decade.   Tracks are full of short fuses, live wires and rusty edges, driven by dynamic rhythms that pummel and guitars that grate, inflected with fierce feedback and maddened vocals. The ….

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The idea of a rarities album, for most bands, can result in something of a horror show. Strands are collected together in a seemingly arbitrary manner and the result is a mess that divides the purists in the fanbase in a holier-than-thou dialogue of righteous and zealous contempt for the existence of such a product as its very existence besmirches their hard-won record collecting supremacy. The tracks can often sit together poorly as the tracklisting is as ill-conceived as Jeremy Clarkson's jeans and trainers combo, and the finished album ends up as merely a bad idea taken too far.

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There are two types of compilation albums. The first of these are the self-evidently shite ones: the rarities compilations that go out of their way to advertise that they aren't actual, proper albums. They are the musical equivalent of dogs' homes run for profit: full of unwanted mongrels whose owners didn't love them enough to give them a proper home on a proper album.

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