The Black Box Revelation Set Your Head on Fire

A Pitchfork staff writer, in a review of U2’s No Line on the Horizon, astutely quipped that a willingness to challenge their listeners’ expectations is what makes artists like The Killers, Coldplay, and Kanye want to be the next U2, rather than the next AC/DC. Point taken. Some bands, though, would love to be the next AC/DC – and still more would love to be the next Wolfmother – and that’s where Belgian rockers The Black Box Revelation come in, with their new album Set Your Head on Fire.

In the first measures of opener Love is on My Mind, singer/guitarist Jan Paternoster’s screams, cackles, and dissonant guitar bends let everyone know exactly what the band is up to. It’s an opening in which they attempt to solidify their status as total badasses. The power chords chug up and down the neck as Paternoster delivers his hilariously expositional lyrics about one night’s carnal conquest, complete with the uninteresting details leading up to the main event: “So we met again. I dressed up real good … and then late that night, she went home with me, yeah! And at my place, she had dinner with me. Romantic candle lights …” You get the idea. So, lyrics usually don’t matter much to the average headbanger, but that doesn’t excuse the singer’s tasteless hollering over the guitar solo.

For a listen or two, the album provides some solid entertainment, and at their best – like on Never Alone, Always Together – The Black Box Revelation exhibit the unforced country swagger of the Stones. At worst, they sound like Belgium’s belated and uncalled-for answer to Jet. With all their faults, though, they do have their moments of pure rock n' roll pleasure, like on Gravity Blues, with its snaky pre-chorus breakdown that sounds like it's pulled straight out of a ZZ Top song. Paternoster's displays formidable guitar chops throughout the disc.

It's both fun and depressing to consider the number of dumb, loud rock bands that use the word "black" in their name: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Black Keys, Black Label Society, The Black Angels – the list continues (feel free to contribute your own examples). Is it a coincidence that so many of these bands derive so much of their knowledge from Black Sabbath and countless other hard rock acts from the seventies? Maybe the word used to signal the music's dark edge, but it has recently evolved into a disclaimer for rote classic rock stylistics. Now, we have one more example of this in The Black Box Revelation.