 |
| |
|
| |
Album Review
by SashaS
3-3-2003
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
More on: Black Box Recorder
|
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
| Black Box Recorder: passion and paranoia |
|
Black Box Recorder: 'Passionoia'
(One Little Indian)
Black Box Recorder’s divan-adventure synth-pop
Black Box Recorder, Luke Haines’s side-project, makes a return to the studio for an album that fits its time as much as it pish-takes it. ‘The School Song’ sets the scene by putting in a bid for one of those ‘School (uniformed) disco nights’ that not only borders on perversion but also instantly takes a self-mickey course as much as it does of its audience.
BBR do not make music to compliment English gardens in summertime, it is more Euro-centric but, being written by the band’s male contingent – Haines and John Moore – it also deals with the boys’ topics and obsessions, such as ‘British Racing Green’… still, it is all turned on its head. Their singer is Sarah Nixey, the bedroom-voiced (if you like ‘er talking while tupping) babe, an unbearably elegant-cum-sex-loaded chanteuse who manages to deliver the whole album as if it were an aural foreplay.
‘Passionoia’ is an ironic, clever but ultimately too subtle an album for this blatant time. ‘Number One’ and ‘The New Diana’ might miss their mark because irony depends on education and we all know the state of the UK’s learning establishments – as narrow as a beer-bottle cap. Even a song entitled ‘Andrew Ridgley’ – arguably the musically better half of Wham! – might miss its mark because it is beyond the pop’s target-audience.
Or, ‘When Britain Refused To Sing’… But, when the band hits its stride, such as ‘These Are The Things’, it is a perfect synth-pop with a sing-a-long chorus that really should kick it up the charts. The trouble it that at this classless time – isn’t congestion charge new enforcement of class system? – this is (mainly) viewed as an upper-class treatment of the prole’s clubland playground.
It is doubtful that Haines is that cynical, although one shouldn’t put it past him; ‘Passionoia’ is simply an ultra-clever electro-pop release that, alas due to aforementioned educational standard, might be appreciated by rather few… Can’t imagine a football supporter walking into a shop and pronouncing the title of the album… (It’s a contraction of ‘passion’ and ‘paranoia’ – for the footie-brigade, in case some are readying – that simply nails living in its entirety.)
No doubt ‘Passionoia’ is a very solid, albeit polite, album that is directly opposed to ‘dumbing down’… It surely is an anti-yob disc.
PS 4 BBR members: the British IQ average is 107.
7/10
SashaS
12-3-2003
Black Box Recorder’s album ‘Passionoia’ is released 03-03-03 on One Little Indian
|
|
|
