Black Box Recorder - London Luminaire
Black Box Recorder do exactly what it says on the tin: record events as we plunge downward to our unglamorous end.
With fresh-found notoriety stemming from the publication of his hilariously bitter Brit-pop memoir ‘Bad Vibes’, Luke Haines brings his beloved Black Box Recorder project out of hibernation for their first headline show in over four years. The scene of their dark return is London’s salubrious Luminaire, a venue with a rare smack of sophistication and, rarer still, a complete lack of coked-up industry types talking over the band’s set. A treat indeed.
Tonight’s sold out show (the first of two) is indicative of a new, lean and reinvigorated group; the pitch black humour that made their previous albums ‘England Made Me’, ‘The Facts Of Life’ and ‘Passionoia’ so essential is to the fore of course, along with the heavenly, occasionally unsettling vocals of Sarah Nixey. Her louche, near-cabaret style compliments Haines’ purposely awkward, often tenderly melancholic songwriting perfectly. It’s like watching a beautiful, caring nursemaid extract an illness from a mean-spirited child to reveal the innocence within.
While the crashing time changes and infamous chorus of ‘Child Psychology’ (preceded by a wry comment from Haines: ‘This was when I was drinking myself to death..’) still hold quite a charge, and the Hammer Horror ballroom prettiness of ‘England Made Me’ is still as vital and unsettling as ever, it is on their new songs that the band really show their mettle.
‘Do You Believe In God?’ is an acoustic-driven contemplation of religion, assisted suicide and fate that manages to be immensely amusing and memorably tuneful while ‘Keep It In The Family’ is one of those stomping, ‘70s style glam numbers Haines is all too capable of tearing out when the mood takes him. It’s a fantastically powerful tune and one that extends the breadth of Black Box Recorder’s musical and lyrical concerns without betraying them.
Musically the band are faultless; Haines’ own wiry guitar lines meshing beautifully and/or horribly (as he so chooses) with the minimal basslines, strummed consistency of ex-JAMC guitarist John Moore and precision timed drumming. Of course it’s Nixey’s vocals that linger in the mind; the casually sexual phrasing and knowing, ironic delivery that light up ‘The Art of Driving’ and the effortless, biting ‘The New Diana’ are a real English treasure.
Haines’ obsessions remain: the minuaitae of English life and class; depression; art; love and the lack of. They strike a timely chord in unsure times and in a country where it feels more and more that we are experiencing a return to the bleaker end of the seventies, Black Box Recorder do exactly what it says on the tin: record events as we plunge downward to our unglamorous end.James O’Connell
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