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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
The Facts Of Life
EMAILPRINTby Black Box Recorder
Universal acclaim
Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Jetset
Release Date: 20 March 2001
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Alternative, Rock
Summary
You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and then you have... the second album from the UK outfit featuring members of the Auteurs and Jesus and Mary Chain. The title track was a Top 20 hit in the UK.
Also By This Artist: Passionoia
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
All Music Guide
Sparse, noir-tinged melancholia... If David Lynch should ever film a TV series in England, here are the soundtrack composers.
Read Full Review >Wall of Sound
Haines' secret weapon lies in the hands of vocalist Sarah Nixey -- a cross between Olivia Newton-John and St. Etienne's Sarah Cracknell. Her singing style supports Haines' music with a deceptive beauty, as she wraps her voice around lyrics that belie that sweetness.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
The band brings its coolly distant, new-wave pop to 'Life,' building on the rawer sound of their 1999 debut. [4/6/2001, p.120]
Dot Music
Luke Haines, of nineties nobodies The Auteurs and Baader Meinhof, together with Sarah Nixey and John Moore, appear to have taken Saint Etienne's 'Like a Motorway' (from 'Tiger Bay') and driven away with it in a battered Ford Escort to a distant destination, a concept album about motorways and travelling.
Read Full Review >Splendid
On The Facts of Life, [Luke] Haines and musical co-conspirator cum multi-instrumentalist John Moore construct a vast sonic wonderland in which [Sarah] Nixey’s starry-eyed vocals are given free reign.
Read Full Review >Mojo
Though "French Rock'n'Roll" is somewhat lacking in zest (quelle surprise), the care afforded to the rest of this record's conception and execution is obvious.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
The perfect soundtrack for the morning after the tacky sexuality of The Spice Girls and Robbie Williams.
Read Full Review >Spin
They elaborate on the love/disappointment/death themes of Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" while merging the sensibilities of the Velvet Underground and Vitamin C. [June 2001, p.153]
PopMatters
Like Pulp and Blur, Black Box Recorder has mastered a pop culture aesthetic inextricably linked to the post-war decline, one that turns complaining about how dreadful everything is into a supremely ironic, comic art form.
Read Full Review >Launch.com
Another batch of tunes that entwine gorgeous, intricate arrangements with the dark, intoxicating side of our libidos.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
Simultaneously lovely and repellent, there's echoes of the Pet Shop Boys, Pink Floyd and Momus. But, in truth, their combination of the sinister and the delicious is entirely original.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
It's all extremely pretty, and without seeming completely manipulative or cloying. Black Box Recorder, however, are still a bit dopey when it comes to lyrics.
Read Full Review >Sonicnet
An album of surface comfort masking massive insecurities -- a perfect complement to the nation it so redolently evokes.
Read Full Review >Almost Cool
If you like well-constructed pop/rock music with female vocals, it's definitely worth a look.
Read Full Review >Magnet
The Facts of Life is a more polished affair, casting vocalist Sarah Nixey's wispy hush into a pool of plucked strings and orchestral flourish -- duly poisoned by some blippy Air trippiness. [#49, p.68]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Benjamin Bunny gave it a 7:
"The Art Of Driving," "The English Motorway System" and the title track are the most beautiful, brilliant and wryly moving tracks of this outfit's career. Unfortunately, the same can not be said of at least a third of the album which, at its worst, delves into overslick and trite examinations of adolescent sexuality. It's definitely worth purchasing for the above-mentioned songs, but keep your finger on the "track-forward" button.
Sabalom G. gave it a 9:
Trust the Americans to fail to grasp wry irony and pitch-black social commentary. This is a fabulous album, and that's a "fact of li - "...what? Oh, sorry.
