13. Metric, 'Synthetica'

After a band has been around a while, it becomes hard not to compare their latest album with their back catalogue, even with a Lou Reed co-sign cameo. This is admittedly neither Metric’s best album nor does it contain the Toronto synth-rock quartet’s best song -- though the buzzsaw ballad "Dreams So Real" is right up there -- but what Synthetica does is, appropriately enough, synthesize all that has come before like a greatest hits collection of all-new songs. The real treat, however, is Emily Haines’ lyrics, which return to transforming socio-political subjects into pop poetry as songs like "Speed the Collapse" and "Youth Without Youth" soundtrack the Great Recession’s long-awaited uprising. -- Joshua Ostroff