Passionoia

With the exception of the last couple of tracks, which just fall short of the exceptionally high standard set elsewhere, this is a great album, brilliantly produced and recorded - if your curious about 'BBR' start here and work backwards.

Here, the guitars are merged into the background to make room for dissonant sound effects and an abundance of 80's style electronic music.. over which vocalist Sarah Nixey relates her tales of repressed British normality and crippling nostalgia. The move towards a more synthetic 80's sound was already becoming apparent on that second BBR album, The Facts of Life, particularly on songs such as The Art of Driving and The English Motorway System. However, with that album, there was still a certain continuation of minimal arrangements and a sparse sound to give us some sense of continuity to the album that came before. Passionoia on the other hand seems like a whole new musical direction for the group... a bright, vibrant and at times giddy pop album, which takes onboard elements of both the 60's and the 80's, but with an overall production job and subject matter that places it firmly in the here and now (...this is real 21st century pop!!). Unlike The Facts of Life, which saw the band looking at more personal issues like relationships and approaching middle-age, Passionoia gets back to the messy business of expelling all and sundry... with songs that deal with pop rivalry, star-worship, celebrity excess and the general British ennui brought on by rainy-days, tabloid TV, and the always prevalent political-class struggle.

Opening track The School Song gets right down to business, with a seductive sounding Nixey essaying the role of the teacher (which will continue on the later track Girls Guide for the Modern Diva), whilst dispelling contemporary rock stars for a number of clichés that conform to the kind of things a teacher would say to a class of rowdy secondary school pupils (as well as doubling as a typically bilious Luke Haines indictment against caricatured rock & roll excess... bringing to mind other Haines-related pop putdowns like American Guitars and Tombstone). The theme moves from celebrity to the personal on the next track, GSOH Q.E.D., which taps into the 21st century infatuation with speed-dating, personal-columns and internet-romance, with Nixey's delivery breaking into an almost rap, as lyrical descriptions of sad, callous, middle-aged types are spat out over the bed of pulsating electro-pop. It's the kind of snide social critique that Haines did so well on that classic Auteurs' album, Now I'm a Cowboy, and certainly demonstrates the fact that Haines and co-writer/band-member John Moore (ex-Absinth Importer) are easily on the same musical page (writing songs that complement the work of esteemed writers like Lennon & McCartney, Mark E. Smith, Ray Davis, Kevin Rowland, Morrissey & Marr, etc, though really, possess a style and ideology that sounds like no one else).

The single at the time was Being Number One, which has a stark irony about it that I'm sure delighted the band, though for me, the songs that sandwich it on the album would have been much better choices for singles one and two. British Racing Green is one of my very favourite BBR/Luke Haines tracks, managing, as it does, to sound like a harsh critical indictment against the British way of life, as well as a warm and nostalgic peen to old fashioned British values ("everybody needs a dream, romance and love and eight hours sleep, a little cottage by the sea... British Racing Green"), which is easily as great, if not greater, than anything released by the Kinks during their classic mid-60's studio era. New Dianna is just a good, tapping into that whole notion of icon-worshiping tabloid excess that seems so prevalent in the 21st century, with the band managing to break through the saintly veneer of the former "queen of hearts", with Nixey gracefully intoning "I want to be the new Dianna, lying on a yacht reading photo magazines, I want to be the new Dianna, visiting the shore occasionally". It's probably a much harsher treatment than what she deserves, but then again, what can you expect from a band who've developed beautiful transcendent pop songs out of suicide, murder, kidnap and death?

The final run of songs bring the album to a perfect close... with Andrew Ridgley offering a tongue in cheek ode to the former Wham! himbo, whilst When Britain Refused to Sing is more perfect pop, 21st century anxiety, with a great use of production and an amusing Nixey rap. The two closing songs are, for me, perfect, capturing the stark, minimalist, dreamy melancholy of the first two BBR albums, with Girls Guide for the Modern Diva offering an example of how pop music should sound in the hear and now, whilst I Ran All the Way Home sounds like classic single Child Psychology, played on a Casio keyboard. Once again, Passionoia is the sound of Black Box Recorder progressing and developing as a band, taking on new ideas, whilst simultaneously perfecting old ones. As with their first two albums, this is a truly, essential purchase.