Foxx's debut album first appeared in 1980, and this edition is a timely reminder that it remains one of the key records in the shift from new wave into synth pop. "Metamatic" still sounds startlingly modern, built from stripped back drum machines, skeletal synth lines and a very deliberate sense of urban unease. There is very little clutter here, no indulgent fluff and certainly no effort to make you feel comfortable. It is precise, clinical and stylish, and gives the distinct impression that your approval is neither required nor especially wanted. This album still sounds like tomorrow, albeit a slightly bleak tomorrow in which nobody smiles much.
"Underpass" and "No-One Driving" are the obvious entry points, and rightly so. Both are superb, full of tension, repetition and motorway paranoia. They feel like a gritty British riposte to the sleek Germanic efficiency of "Autobahn". Kraftwerk may glide happily down the motorway in a spotless Mercedes-Benz, but in Foxx’s world the humans are no longer the ones driving and the landscape appears to be quietly catching fire.
Elsewhere, tracks such as "He’s A Liquid", "Metal Beat" and "A New Kind Of Man" show just how fully formed Foxx’s vision already was. Nothing feels accidental. Every sound seems placed with care, even if that care occasionally suggests a man who trusted machines more than people, which, to be fair, is not always the worst instinct. As a listen, "Metamatic" is not warm, cosy or remotely background friendly. It is sleek, detached, influential and still hugely enjoyable, a record that sounds as if it arrived from a cleaner, stranger future, took one look around and decided standards had slipped. 4/5
