| 90 |
All Music Guide
Sparse, noir-tinged melancholia... If David Lynch should ever film a TV series in England, here are the soundtrack composers.
|
| 90 |
Billboard
A delicious, genre-defying sound
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| 83 |
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.
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| 83 |
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]
|
| 80 |
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.
|
| 80 |
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.
|
| 80 |
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.
|
| 80 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
The perfect soundtrack for the morning after the tacky sexuality of The Spice Girls and Robbie Williams.
|
| 80 |
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]
|
| 80 |
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.
|
| 80 |
Launch.com
Another batch of tunes that entwine gorgeous, intricate arrangements with the dark, intoxicating side of our libidos.
|
| 80 |
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.
|
| 73 |
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.
|
| 70 |
Sonicnet
An album of surface comfort masking massive insecurities -- a perfect complement to the nation it so redolently evokes.
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| 70 |
Almost Cool
If you like well-constructed pop/rock music with female vocals, it's definitely worth a look.
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| 60 |
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]
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