John Foxx & Louis Gordon - 'Crash & Burn' (Metamatic)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
It's quite a punk-rock attitude. You form the world famous Ultravox, then leave at their peak. You set up your own label and spend the 1980s releasing records that feature, amongst much techno pioneering, things such as the Lord's Prayer sung in Italian over a disco beat. Then you disappear in 1985 to write a book that you never finish, and only play gigs in churches and botanical gardens. How's that for giving the middle-finger to convention? John Foxx, as is now obvious, does things his own way. With sometime collaborator Louis Gordon, he's resurfaced with one of the strangest records you'll hear in a while.
The opening sixty seconds of this album are immaculate. In fact, the opening song is pretty much faultless. The track in question is the marvellous 'Drive', possibly one of the finest things John Foxx has ever put his name to. It's utterly weird, darkly surreal but incredibly appealing with it, and frankly can't be praised highly enough. Somewhat unfortunately seeing as there are another 11 tracks to be dealt with before 'Crash & Burn' has run its course, it's also the best track on the record by a generous country mile. So how exactly do you follow something that's full of such strange brilliance?
The answer is by getting even stranger. Often, this is a sinister record, the electronic sound of panic and foul weather. Night-time serves it well. The likes of the title-track and 'Sex Video' do actually border on the frightening. Contrary to first impressions, this is not a welcoming album. You see, 'Drive' lures you into thinking this could actually be quite a fun listen, and then as 'Crash & Burn' unfolds you become increasingly confused and afraid of every sound it throws your way.
Or at least, so is the case for a while. It's sad to say that there's a rather monumental loss of focus along the way. The sequencing of the tracks gives the album a great opening punch, but perhaps if some of these stronger moments had been saved for the latter parts of the record, it wouldn't sound as if it was repeating itself quite so often. 'Once In A While' and 'Side Walking' are two of the first culprits here. It's an album that relies on its tunes and shock appeal, but the inclusion of some such run of the mill tracks can do nothing but dim this. Shedding a couple of compositions would definitely not have hurt a work which in its latter-half becomes so pedestrian that when a more worthy track does rear its head (such as the Kraftwerk-influenced 'She Robot'), you wonder if it's only sounding quite so good because it's sandwiched between such mediocrity.
The largest crime present is the almost happy hardcore of 'Ray 1 / Ray 2', which can't help but sound utterly out of place. In its other less inspired moments, 'Crash & Burn' at least remains atmospheric, but this betrays that to a shocking extent. But that's this album for you, peaks of insane brilliance, many moments of intrigue and some unwelcome instances of weakness. But although their robotic instruments of choice would suggest otherwise, perhaps this can be forgiven - Foxx and Gordon are only human after all.
Artists in this article: John Foxx & Louis Gordon
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