Joydrop
Metasexual (Tommy Boy)
by Marc Hirsh
Joydrop
Metasexual (Tommy Boy)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in Space City Rock, Fall 1999
The sound of people who can really play their instruments and haven't figured out a thing beyond that, Metasexual is as lazy as a "potent," "edgy" and "hard-driving" (to quote the press kit) band can be. Joydrop are so busy showing off that they don't actually see that there's nothing to brag about.
Just like Artificial Joy Club, whose "Sick and Beautiful" befouled the summer airwaves a while back, Joydrop is what happens if you build a version of Garbage that indulged the worst instincts of everybody in the group (especially Butch and Shirley). They mix textured hard rock with electronic sugarcoating into a massively overproduced blender and pour out a flavorless fizz ("Fizz," incidentally, being the name of the first song). It's intriguing for about 2 seconds and then it leaves you with nothing but a burnt tongue.
It's not the general ideas behind the sound that's the trouble. "No One" sounds like a Suede castoff, which is exactly what it would have been if Suede had come up with it. The Foo Fighters and (again, sorry) Garbage have, in "Hey Johnny Park!" and "I Think I'm Paranoid," used ideas similar to those in "If I Forgot," one of the least unlistenable songs on the CD. "Breakdown" starts off almost exactly like David Garza's "Kinder." But you see, that's a real song (which makes Garza's 30-second Best Buy ad on MTV more entertaining than this entire album), whereas just about everything here is just a showcase, especially for lead singer Tara Slone. Her press kit-touted "rich three-octave voice" (who cares?) goes from insubstantial to screechy and unlistenable (sometimes in seconds, as in "Spiders," "Cocoon" and "No One") when she's not just embarrassing herself (with help from the faceless band), as in the clumsy hip-hop-inflected verses of "All Too Well" (a bone thrown to label Tommy Boy, perhaps?).
Once you get past the sonic slumgullion, though, that's when the trauma of the words kicks in. Every crevice of Metasexual is crammed with "emotional" (my quotes), "pretty heavy" (the press kit's quotes) lyrics that show all the depth of a bogus high school bohemian, what with being "infused with spiritual and philosophical issues" (press kit again) and all. Lyrics that are treated like episodes of The Twilight Zone abound; the protagonist of "Beautiful" starts off talking about what would happen "if I was beautiful like you," only to pause dramatically and then announce (in heavily processed vocals) "but I'm beautiful like me" as the band slams into horror metal chords. Check mate!
Two final notes on the press materials. They make a big deal about citing the band's credentials, telling which members studied composition and which studied opera and musical theatre. Exactly what you're looking for in a rock band. They also mention that the group formed in 1996, which figures. This is what happens when a band rushes into their first full-lengther less than two years after first getting together. Metasexual is all style and no substance. Without the style, either, just poses.