JOHN FOXX & LOUIS GORDON CRASH AND BURN ALBUM METAMATIC, ARTFUL, BORDER RELEASE: JULY 21, 2003 REVIEW: JULY 30, 2003

The impressions fall like snow flakes within me as "Crash and Burn" progresses. Sudden turns, relentless aggression and sugar sweet nostalgia intertwine and form an eclectic mesh of music. Mr John Foxx is back at it, this time aided by Louis Gordon in the studio, making "Crash and Burn" their second collaboration to date.
Foxx and Gordon have made an album with many faces, incorporating and embracing the past, present and future through its cyber-esque lyrical content. The element of continuity is darkness and pessimism, effectively projected through Foxx's dry, almost sinister vocal. Highly electronic in nature, "Crash and Burn" continues the legacy of John's earlier works such as the classics "Metamatic" and "The Garden", albeit with hints of modern club music. For the avid synthpop fan, it is easy to understand what the members of, say, Second Decay have been listening to while composing their more "uncommercial" tracks. The brilliant "Ultraviolet/Infrared" shows this with crude plainness. While I like Foxx's clever little tid bits of futuristic transportation and the gloomy "Blade Runner"-aesthetics, listening to the whole album is overkill for me. At least for a lad with an almost perverse love for melody like yours truly. Twelve tracks of intelligent, highly obstinate electronic pop made me put in some early Erasure to neutralize my very being. The unpersonal, borderline robotic aura works well, seen as a construction; a monument of music, but this is certainly not for everyone.
This said, "Crash and Burn", in today's forays of dance music on the back of an electroclash craze could most certainly appeal to a large crowd. The die-hard Foxx fans have already bought it.

NIKLAS FORSBERG