SISSY PROZAC
SPEED
ALBUM ETERNITY RELEASE: MAY 20, 2002 REVIEW: JUNE 24, 2002

Perhaps only a foreign band can really nurture the dream of America. Sissy Prozac are Swedes, but the album is a distillate of college film America with all its imagery. I’m struck by the ever present and ever so “rebel without a cause” theme, reminding me of Elvis movies and John Waters' “Cry Baby”.
The whole thing, covering Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America”, shamelessly borrowing lines like “the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades” and singing about high school beauty queens, sounds hollow and false like the concept of rebellious rock music rather than rock itself. But then four of the five members are former classmates of the actors’ school in Gothenburg. In other words, Sissy Prozac is one of those arty conceptual bands formed as a hip hobby for art students that never really amount to much.
No concept can make up for the lack of good songs, and Sissy Prozac don’t compare favourably to the mass of great Swedish, not to mention international pop bands. Their blend of college rock, glam and britpop (they say “pavement” rather than ”sidewalk”) is decent but nothing special.

MATTIAS HUSS