REVIEW: Black Box Recorder, England Made Me (Jetset)
- Niles Baranowski
"It's my primary instinct," sings Sarah Nixey, "to protect the child." The words come out of her mouth like a soft, sultry demonic possession, but it's hard not to laugh. After all, these aren't Nixey's words; they come from former auteur Luke Haines, he of the morbid obsession with car crashes and terrorism. So when you boil it down, you have Nixey (who did vocals with the short-lived Balloon) pretending to be Haines who is pretending to be a teenaged mother.
This sort of pretending isn't taken much further on Black Box Recorder's debut, the prettily dour England Made Me, but it informs the sensibility behind almost all the lyrics. Whether it's a black, hateful heart hiding behind respectability (the title track and "I.C. One Female") or vice versa (the superb "Child Psychology"), Haines' portraits of a repressed, cuckolded Britain seethe with mistrust and deserved cynicism. Yet the combination of Haines' misanthropy and Nixey's icy intonation leaves an unwelcome emotional void on "New Baby Boom," where Nixey sings like teen pregnancy is some sort of bad hair day.
It's no question that Black Box Recorder are best when they have a story to wrap their dry British wit around (how ironic that they should be attacking their homeland with one of its best known qualities). The sparse "Child Psychology" is a tale of a spoiled child who punishes her parents with the silent treatment, climaxing with the most acidic chorus you'll hear this year. "Kidnapping an Heiress" is another take on Patty Hearst's mid '70s ordeal, this time from the side of the S.L.A., and the languid, chimy "Swinging" comes from the mouth of a moll with a heart of iron.
England Made Me isn't without hooks, but musically nothing will catch in your head, except maybe the collision of Nixey and Haines' voices on the chorus of "Child Psychology." It's the lyrics and Nixey's vacancy that entrance the listener, more than the Velvet Underground-derived tunecraft (think "I'll be Your Mirror" for a reference). Their cover of "Seasons in the Sun" is a perfect example: Nixey throws every one of the song's lines away as if by rote, like she cares not a whit for anything she's saying goodbye to. By the time she gets to the chorus, she's rushing, as if anxious for that light at the end of the tunnel. No crushed flower melodrama here, Black Box Recorder has realized that pain is the only thing engrossing enough to distract you from pain.
