Rockbites: Black Box Recorder release 2nd LP for US

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March 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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Black Box Recorder release 2nd LP for US
16 March 2001

English trio Black Box Recorder reframed the alternative pop landscape two years ago in one stroke, the release of their breakthrough debut England Made Me. That album’s bleak, nihilistic, sardonic Weltanschauung immediately won them global critical adoration. It was surely no accident. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Luke Haines (founder of The Auteurs, member of Baader Meinhof) was realizing a dark crystalline vision with former Jesus And Mary Chain drummer & UK absinthe advocate and importer John Moore. Sarah Nixey, former actress and one-time singer for UK band Balloon—from which Haines and Moore stole her while working with them in the studio—supplied her spellbinding voice to the project.
    Last May Black Box Recorder released their second album in the UK and Europe on Nude Records, The Facts Of Life. For typically impenetrable reasons, it doesn’t see daylight for North America until next Tuesday. But—no fears—this stuff is not confined by a shelf life.
    The Facts Of Life, despite advance publicity from Jetset Records to the contrary, is very much a concept album. But the new LP trades nihilism for deep romanticism, bleakness for stark beauty. A few counterpoint songs—notably Straight Life and The Deverell Twins, which could fit equally well on England Made Me—ensure that the band’s dark underpinnings are not lost on new fans.
    The high concept on The Facts Of Life is that precious knife-edge moment in a new romance, when anything can happen, and nothing might happen. To reach toward such a lofty artistic goal, Haines and Moore have written song-stories inhabited by the very young and inexperienced. I found the whole affair rather precious on the first few listenings, until the record won my trust. The Facts Of Life touches emotional regions normally the domain of real life, not pop songs. Four bites out of five.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

| Black Box Recorder | | The Facts Of Life (interactive page) | | Nude Records | | Green Bohemia (UK absinthe importers) | | bio | | discography | | CD | | top of page |

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