Black Strobe - Burn Your Own Church (Playlouder)
1/5
By: Chris O'Toole
Over the years Black Strobe have carved out a reputation for tantalizing mixes, re-mixes and singles; the producers of choice for discriminating electro/rock acts including Bloc Party and the Rapture. They have built up a stock of goodwill with fleeting live appearances, enhancing the work of others while offering enticing glimpses as to what their own work would sound like; including the singles 'Me and Madonna' and 'Chemical Sweet Girl'. However, with 'Burn Your Own Church', their pretentiously titled debut album proper, Black Strobe have, in a single stroke, squandered this reputation. The album is collection of bass heavy synth rockers, in a similar style to that of Nine Inch Nails or a drug addled Depech Mode; all ham fisted lyrics, bludgeoning beats and leather trouser posturing.
Now reduce to a duo, after the departure of founder member Ivan Smagghe, Black Strobe have reconfigured themselves into a more conventional band. They have adopted proper instruments and finally released a proper album. The results are disturbing, to say the least. Opener 'Brenn Di Ega Kjerke' is a fairly straightforward European dance number. It builds slowly over its six minute duration, adding flickering beeps and pulsing synths to the bedrock bassline. It is slightly out of sync with the rest of the album, more uncomplicated dance than what follows, and doubtlessly the producers imagine the listener hanging on the edge of their seat, gradually building to exaltation and feverishly waiting for the beat to drop. Unfortunately the track is tiresome, staid and lightweight, never breaking from its restrictive narrative or offering enough to get anybody out of any seats or onto any dance floor. And it gets worse.
While 'Brenn Di Ega Kjerke' might be middling the rest of the album is an experiment in egregious synth rock. At times sounding like Atari Teenage Riot meets Linkin Park, 'Burn Your Own Church' is an attempt to file the edges of Reznor's aggressive, confrontational style, and make it more palatable and commercial. Unfortunately, Reznor succeeds purely because of this base, melodramatic style; shocking people through the stages of embarrassment until they come to accept his pain as genuine. But attempting to tone down the show annihilates it altogether. As with Marilyn Manson, an artist has to go further with each record, pushing the envelope of self righteous agony. However, what Black Strobe have done with this album is mix in some dance sensibilities and stray beats and emerged as preening dilatants, pretenders to a faded empire of dirt.
Most of the remaining ten tracks follow a simple pattern. A lyrical hook is developed, on 'Shining Bright Star' it's shining bright star, and on 'Blood Shot Eyes' it's blood shot eyes, and shouted in a quasi-threatening/comical tone over some raging slabs of synth. This formula ebbs and eddies but never strays far from centre. 'Girl Next Door' slows it down a bit, briefly placing more emphasis on the monotone lyrics before the inevitable beats, 'You Should Be' and 'Buzz Buzz Buzz' speeds it up a little, bringing in the beats before the shouted chorus. But that is pretty much the whole story. Oh, yeah, there is also a Bo Diddey cover, 'I'm A Man', which transplants a blues swagger onto the usual synths. The less said about that the better. In fact, let's never speak about this ever again.
Stream three tracks from 'Burn Your Own Church' HERE.
Artists in this article: Black Strobe
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