Metals is the fourth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Feist. It was released on September 30, 2011 in Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and Belgium; October 3, 2011 in the United Kingdom; and October 4, 2011 in the United States and Canada. The first single from the album is "How Come You Never Go There", which was released on August 12, 2011. The album was supported by a world tour which started in Amsterdam, Netherlands on October 15, 2011 and finished on October 20, 2012 in Latin America. Metals debuted on the US Billboard 200 at number 7, and sold 38,000 copies in its first week. It earned Feist's best sales week and it was her first top 10 album to chart in the US. The album received acclaim from critics. Promotion Promotion for the album began with short videos which feature snippets of tracks and the making of the album. They were posted on her website and other social networking sites since July 21, 2011. Four days after, she officially announced the release of Metals. Artwork for the album was revealed on August 2, 2011; previously, fans were given the opportunity to select the color design for the album cover on Facebook. Writing and recording After touring for her previous album, The Reminder, Feist was "emotionally deaf". She stopped playing music for two years, saying that she "wasn't curious anymore". In 2010, she went to the studio in Paris where she had recorded The Reminder. After coming back from Paris six months later, she wrote most of the album. For recording Metals, Feist went to Big Sur with the lyrics almost completed and set up an ad hoc recording studio. Metals was recorded in Toronto and Big Sur, with collaborators including Chilly Gonzales, Mocky, Brian LeBarton, Dean Stone, and producer Valgeir Sigurðsson. They began recording the album in January 2011. She said of the recording process that "I allowed for mistakes more than I ever have, which end up not being mistakes when you open things up and make room for them." The album's title was partially inspired by Charles C. Mann's non-fiction book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, where it describes the Aztecs' and conquistadors' differing ideas about precious metals such as gold. Composition For the album, Feist aimed for a sound she described as "modern ancient", mixing old and new instruments. She stated that