Passionoia

Despite his various musical manifestations over the years, the acerbic wit of Luke Haines has always seemed more at home in the electro-pop surrounds of Black Box Recorder than in any of his other guises – although The Auteurs’ brilliant After Murder Park remains one of the nineties’ lost gems.

Black Box Recorder sometimes come across like the musical equivalent of Chris Morris’ Brass Eye, such is the level of sarcastic satire projected at the listener. And like Morris’ best work, BBR are at their most potent when their songs are so sardonic they could almost pass as sincere. Like ‘Andrew Ridgeley’, a paean to George Michael’s former Wham-mate: “I never liked George Michael much, although they say he was the talented one/ Andrew Ridgeley drew the map that rescued me, took me to paradise”.

Elsewhere, they cast a caustic eye on modern life in the western world on tracks like ‘These Are The Things’ and ‘British Racing Green’ (consumerism) and ‘Being Number One’ (the music industry). ‘GSOH Q.E.D.’ delves into the world of Personal Ads, but while The Four Of Us’ ‘Classified Personal’ dealt with the same subject matter with a reasonably gentle sense of humour, BBR are far more caustic in their approach.

Throughout, their acid-dripping lyrics are combined with super-strength saccharine melodies, but unfortunately the end result is just too clinical and sometimes downright insipid for these ears. In fact, the song titles are often better than the songs themselves (‘Girls Guide For The Modern Diva’). While they will always appeal to the nudge-nudge-aren’t-we-clever types, Black Box Recorder, for all their intelligence, humour and lyrical dexterity, just aren’t interesting enough musically for this listener. A worthy endeavour, then, but not a great one.