Any artistic journey worth taking as a band is going to be a lot easier if your bandmates bring something out of you that you can’t find anywhere else.

Luckily for the Canadian New Wave quartet Metric, this is the case.

“It was a feeling that they were the first people that I have met in a long time that I didn’t feel like would self-sabotage,” says bassist Josh Winstead on the first time playing in the group. “We’re all bigger than ourselves when we came together.”

And it’s not like Metric’s members haven’t had other opportunities. The group’s most recognizable players, frontwoman Emily Haines and guitarist Jimmy Shaw, were both part of the influential indie rock collective Broken Social Scene, while Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key collaborated in the punk/blues duo Bang Lime.

Metric’s early stages included just Haines and Shaw and produced the group’s first album “Grow Up and Blow Away.” But with the addition of Winstead and Scott-Key in 2001, something clicked. The dynamics of a live band were there — and they ran with it.

This new Metric broke out with 2003’s “Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?,” followed almost immediately by “Live Out Loud” in 2005. Both albums established Metric’s mix of New Wave rhythms, angular guitars and bouncy synths. And both releases kept the band touring from 2003 through 2006 on an exhaustive schedule to maintain awareness of the group.

“In a 15-minute window, people will forget about you,” Winstead says. “We were happy to keep going. Tired, but happy.”

But eventually, Metric had to stop. Haines released two solo records and took a songwriting sabbatical in Argentina. Scott-Key and Winstead went back to Bang Lime, and Shaw hit the mixing boards of his Toronto recording studio.

But when the four finally got back together to begin recording their self-released follow-up “Fantasies,” even more trips would have to be made. Stripped-down writing and recording sessions on a Seattle farm. More recording at the studio influenced by the bustling energy of metropolitan Toronto. Even more guitars and overdubs added during the final mix at Electric Lady in New York City.

But the four-year hiatus/recording process only helped strike the balance that “Fantasies” offers. There’s ominous, Garbage-esque alt-rock on “Front Row,” the angelical levity on “Collect Call” and the glorious New Wave anthem “Gimmy Sympathy,” which Coldplay is kicking themselves for not writing.

Haines’ saccharine delivery and biting lyrics haven’t gone anywhere, but Winstead says that after three albums that focused on the negative, “Fantasies” has got a different outlook. A more positive one. And with Metric reunited as an independent entity and continuing to grow creatively, it’s an outlook they also share.

“This one is more about creating the life you want to live,” he says.

Fans can get lost in Metric’s “Fantasies” and other songs when they come to Lawrence, Kan., to perform with Sebastien Grainger at 8 p.m. tonight. Tickets are $15.