Metric has to be reasonably pleased with the way things have turned out lately. Emily Haines is worshipped by a small but fervent fanbase as the second coming, and the band’s shock-electropop has managed to get some mainstream radio play in Toronto, meaning the mid-90s phenomenon of indie one-hit-wonder may be in vogue again. More importantly, they have a fairly successful album to call their own and lots of critical praise.

Of course, as is usually the case, things weren’t always so simple. While Metric is apparently happy with their current sound, it turns out that back in 2000, the band had crafted a sleeker, more pop-oriented Metric album for release on Restless Records. For some reason, the album was delayed ad infinitum before simply being dropped in a vault, never to be seen again. Metric started from scratch and came up with Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, and a couple of years ago Grow Up And Blow Away would’ve been nothing but a tiny footnote, as shelved albums often stay there, doomed to languish in obscurity.

But this is the age of the internet, and somewhere in the piles of porn you can find the remains of albums deemed unworthy of release. As it turns out, Grow Up And Blow Away is available for download if you know where to look (hint: this ain’t an official release), and it’s not half bad. It is, however, also stuck in the late 90s, and there are some embarrassing concessions to top 40 conventions from a couple of years ago. Will Old World Underground sound as dated given a couple more years? As long as they manage to keep up with the times, I doubt people will care one way or the other.