BLACK BOX RECORDER
England Made Me (Jet Set)
Rating: 5 out of 7
By Michael Lipton

   If you’re a fan of dark, wrist-slashing lyrics delivered with a voice so airy and unemotional (not to mention sensual) it could float away, the debut from England’s Black Box Recorder should make your “best of ’99” list. It doesn’t take long (15 seconds, maybe) to realize that the band--the Auteurs’ Luke Haines, ex-Jesus and Mary Chain/Expressway drummer John Moore, and vocalist Sarah Nixey--have hit on a style that fits so well, it’s hard to believe this is the trio’s first release.
   Nixey’s seductive, conversational singing is the ultimate drug--letting the knife slide in that much easier when she hammers away at “dreary old England,” love, and life itself (“Life is unfair/kill yourself or get over it”). If the Kinks poked fun at British society, BBR fires rounds of poisonous darts. In the title track, she starts off killing bugs (“I trapped a spider underneath glass/I kept it for a week to see how long he’d last”), but soon graduates to humans (“I had a dream last night, that I was drunk/I killed a stranger and left him in a trunk”). 
   The instrumental accompaniment is sparse and precise (unlike the Auteurs), and would make for a good listen (or movie soundtrack) on its own, notably “Up Town Top Ranking” and “Hated Sunday,” while titles like “Child Psychology,” “It’s Only The End Of The World,” and “Kidnapping An Heiress” don’t disappoint. The U.S. version contains four U.K. singles and B-sides not on the U.K. release.