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Underground > Radio & Music >

Black Box Recorder - Passionoia

  
 
Peach Pie
09:01 / 08.03.03
This album is just fantaaaastic. I don't know enough about John Moore's writing prior to BBR to comment on his contribution, but followers of Luke Haines will not be disappointed. Even the jokey tracks contain more biting social comment than most bands manage in an album. 'GSOH QED' takes a cynical look at classified ad- dating: What do you see/ when he turns out the lights?/ A skin parade of his old lovers/ Sliding underneath the covers/ From passionate... to paranoid...

'British Racing Green' is the first track to feature heavily the glam tinged/ scrambled/ glockenspieled sound that Haines is known to love so much. It's a moving look at the secret dreams of a nation, which reminds you Virginia Woolf's 'the Waves': Everybody needs to dream/Romance and love and eight hours sleep. The gorgeous harmonies are overladen with reflections on domestic dreams: Crack in the foundation/claim for compensation leads to/aspirations and pipe dreams/Buy myself a sports car/British racing Green. But there's much a humour too, including a very funny tribute to WHAM's less famous half, which also takes a swipe at modern day materialism: I love money/a daughter of negative equity/a child of Black wednesday.

The obligatory beautiful-swingbeat track is 'When Britain refused to Sing', which tells the tale ofsome of the more surreal moments in British politics over the past couple of years - the fire strike, the raw hatred between town and country exposed by the foxhunting bill, and Tony Blair's speech to the Womens' Institute.

The absolute stand out track is the big finale 'I ran all the way home'. It switches effortlessly from the singer recalling a sour moment on holiday with her parents, to growing up and wishing she could be looked after again (yes, it sounds soppy, but trust me, it's not). There's another tragic tale of a couple losing their child in the last verse. It's sad, but without being sentimental or even down beat. You have to hear it to believe it. A grade A from the Black Box Recorder school of song.

P.S. If you bought either of BBR's first two albums, you will know that the band likes to shock its fans with the CD's inside cover. This time there's a reference to Michael Barrymore. That's all I'm saying.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
17:30 / 08.03.03
Eh. I'm not crazy about it. A lot of the sounds beat the same basic BBR formula into the ground, it just gets too samey for its own good. The songs aren't particularly catchy, they're pretty middle-of-the-road and generic-sounding for the most part. I find a lot of the lyrics somewhat cringe-inducing, they just get too obvious and hamfisted at times, especially on "The New Diana" and "Being Number One". I think it's sort of like what Jarvis Cocker's lyrics would be like if he had no sense of subtlety.

However.... "The School Song" is absolutely brilliant, and almost makes up for the weaknesses of all the other songs on the record. Prior to hearing this song, the only Black Box Recorder song that I liked was "Child Psychology", and this one blows it away. I'll be putting "The School Song" on a lot of mix cds this year, I think.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
08:39 / 09.03.03
How does it relate to the second album? Or, rather, if it came down to it, which is worth getting? I've only got the first disc - which I think it fantastic - though when I saw them live a couple of years ago, was distinctly unimpressed about the newish stuff, apart from the EP-only (I think) "Lord Lucan Is Missing". What's the worthier purchase?
 
 
Peach Pie
09:52 / 09.03.03
I could never say i regretted buying the second album, because my favourite song of all time, french rock 'n roll, is on it. The general consensus among BBR fans is that it lacked the inventiveness and acid with of 'England Made Me', although I'd still recommend 'the facts of life' head and shoulders over most albums.

I like Passionoia best of all, because it has the cynicism and humour of the first, and the tidy synchronised harmonies of the second. It's more outward looking than E.M.M, with the result that it may ruffle a few feathers in the popworld. If you can get to hear it at a listening desk, I'd recommend tracks 1, 3, 8, & 10.
 
  
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