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Rating: In 1980, Foxx began his solo career. The years spent with Ultravox would leave their mark, not only on the compositional metrics of his new solitary path but also on the very sound of his former colleagues, who would no longer be able to achieve the level of brilliance of the first three chapters marked by the leader's voice.
So in that 1980, John Foxx abandoned all types of acoustic and electric instruments; electronics would be the only sound source upon which his elegant and cold vocalizations would rely. The Kraftwerkian futurist poetics would be reimagined in a perspective shaped for the new decade that had just begun, revisited in a personal and convincing way.
"Metamatic" stands as a cold and tense synth-pop monument. Robotic movements and sinister echoes dominate every passage of the work; the perfect, clean, and antiseptic sounds radiate future and nocturnal atmospheres, with Foxx's hypnotic vocals wandering amid sharp and evocative melodic structures. From the initial "Plaza," the synthetic and rarefied air of the work is palpable, with lashing drum machine beats and futuristic melodies intertwined with the voice and synthesizer. The lyrics are alienating, delivered with a detached manner. If in Ultravox electronics was an additional element of the group's sound, the solo Foxx of this first chapter raises entirely synthetic sound walls. No other instrument apart from the synth and his voice accompanies him on this journey through future metropolises and technological psychoses. The stylistic unity of the individual tracks is extraordinary, an obsessive search for a shadowy atmosphere and an admirable melodic clarity. From the metallic labyrinths of "Underpass" to the mechanical and Kraftwerkian ballet of "Metal Beat" or again, from the sinuous and cybernetic movements of "No One Driving," "A New Kind Of Man," and "He's A Liquid," up to the dark and meditative landscapes of "Tidal Wave," all stamped by Foxx's voice, at times detached but always elegant and in perfect alignment with the sonic transformations.
Already with his next solo album, Foxx would gradually soften much of the cold austerity of this debut, also due to a renewed use of rock instrumentation to accompany the electronics, thereby losing much of the allure of this "Metamatic," which with that "Touch And Go" set to mark its finale, amidst pounding artificial rhythms and hypnotic-minimal melodies, awakens sentient machines and androids dreaming of electric sheep.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Plaza (03:55)
On the Plaza
We're dancing slowly, lit like photographs
Across the Plaza
Toward the shadow of the cenotaph
Down escalators, come to the sea view
Behind all the smoked glass no-one sees you
A familiar figure comes to meet you
I remember your face
From some shattered windscreen...
Across the Plaza
A giant hoarding of Italian cars
Across the Plaza
The lounge is occupied by seminars
Down escalators, come to the sea view
Behind all the smoked glass no-one sees you
A familiar figure comes to meet you
I remember your face
From some shattered windscreen...
From the Plaza
The highways curve in over reservoirs
On the Plaza
A queue is forming for the cinema...
Down escalators, come to the sea view
Behind all the smoked glass no-one sees you
A familiar figure comes to meet you
I remember your face
From some shattered windscreen...
On the Plaza
On the Plaza
On the Plaza
On the Plaza
On the Plaza
On the Plaza
On the Plaza
On the Plaza
02 He's a Liquid (03:03)
He's an angle
She's a tangent
There's some flowers on the bathroom floor
He's a clicktrack
Now she makes a flashback
He's a liquid
He's a laugh
She's a graph
He wears a sticky white shirt and tie
In those viscous clothes
His watch hand glows
He's a liquid
She's elusive
He's adhesive
He's a trickle down a falling wall
They get married too much
She's a soft touch
He's a liquid
He pulls
She pushed
They read The Bible about the flood
She draws the curtains
'Cos now she's certain
He's a liquid
03 Underpass (03:57)
Standing in the dark
Watching you glow
Lifting a receiver
Nobody I know
Chorus:
Underpass
Underpass
Well I used to remember
Now it's all gone
World War something
We were somebody's sons
(Chorus)
Over all the bridges
Echoes in rows
Talking at the same time
Click click drone
(Chorus)
Misty on the glass now
Rusty on the door
Here for years now
Click click drone
Click click drone
Click click drone
Click click drone
Click click
(Repeat chorus and fade)
04 Metal Beat (03:02)
Chorus:
Metal beat
Metal beat
Metal beat
Metal beat
Jim Suit
Black hair
Dim skin
Gold teeth
A trickle voice like a silver sheet
The pulling of the light
Reflecting in my eyes
Pick up a flip-top box from a vinyl seat
(Chorus)
Drift in
Drift out
We're gone
I'm here
Click on
Click off
No, no
Don't get too near
Name on the shatterproof glass
Melt into a mass
Let's slide across me in this heat
(Chorus)
08 030 (03:18)
Male caucasian
Pattern scarring
Domestic gestures just like mine
Kennedy hairline
Remix features
Someone pushing through my outline
Chorus:
Voices merging
Faces blurring
Voices blurring
Faces merging
Lieutenant 030
Lieutenant 030
X-rays match up
Sunlit concrete
Missing since 1963
File a decaying car
Buried in the sand
Empty clothing blows across a beach
(Chorus)
09 Tidal Wave (04:17)
Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave
Goes by my window
We're swimming
It's morning
No sound at all
Through floors of apartments
Background dissolves
Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave
Goes by my window
You're balancing bravely
It's been so long
You're speaking
Can't hear you
No sound at all
Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave
Goes by my window
A glimpse of old sunlight
No sound at all
A flicker
Of flashback
Background dissolves
Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave
Goes by my window
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Other reviews
By egebamyasi
His is a journey into depersonalization, everything within this album evokes non-feeling, alienation.
Foxx’s approach is philosophical: he wants to 'lose himself in the machine,' exorcizing the cybernetic universe.
