Box – Cherry Blossoms At Night
Box – Cherry Blossoms At Night
Miserable Pyre Of Secrets
Release Date: 29/07/22
Running Time: 40:05
Review by Dark Juan
10/10
As I cruise in the Schwerer Gothikpanzer through the hills and valleys of North Yorkshire, I slowly become aware of an ever-brightening light. Recognising it for what it is and knowing that I only have a few moments before the EMP wave hits, I pull over and rip the terminals from the battery of the car as well as turn off my mobile phone. Then I dive back into the car, and cover my head and eyes with my coat to preserve my sight. I can still perceive the light even through a parka and my tightly closed eyelids. This has been being threatened for weeks by an increasingly unhinged world leader whose anger and hubris has only increased in the face of a world who was not prepared to stand idly by while he struck out. Hypersonic glide vehicles are his weapon of choice as the UK has nothing in its arsenal that can defend against a MIRV travelling at Mach 22-27. Especially an autonomous one that can manoeuvre independently. Somewhere, there is a Royal Navy submarine awaiting orders having armed the Trident missiles it is carrying. The US Navy are also preparing their fleet of nuclear strike submarines and Carrier Battle Groups start to scan the air with purpose, alert aircraft on the catapults. The French have readied the Rafales of the Force De Dissuasion with their ASMP stand-off missiles and have targets set, awaiting the word of the French President, and stocks of B61 gravity bombs are being released to European air forces. The RAF and Luftwaffe conduct joint nuclear strike operations in Northern Europe while the Norwegians, Swedes and Finns fly top cover for them. Meanwhile, as the blast wave passes and I reconnect the terminals to my car battery, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Hull, Birmingham and Bradford are no more. This is a warning. However, mutually-assured destruction means that a commensurate number of cities from the country of the leader who precipitated this world crisis have also been turned into a radioactive desert of fused silica. Although I preserved my phone from the EMP wave of the explosions, there is no mobile coverage and the radio waves are a white nightmare of static. Driving close to the remains of a city is a sobering and uncomfortable experience… and the sight of the survivors is even worse…
Pardon me. I was just ruminating and toying with the idea of what it might be like to experience, but survive an initial tactical nuclear strike. Good afternoon. I am listening to a suitably apocalyptic soundtrack to my thoughts, in the form of Box, a project from an annoyingly talented bastard called Andrew Stromstad, who can sing and play pretty much every instrument known to man. Yep, the twat even has cheekbones to die for as well. I knew he would.
Anyway, the man is absolutely musically unhinged, as “Cherry Blossoms At Night” gleefully takes Classic Rock and Metal sensibilities and smashes them into the kind of electronic soundscapes that Synthwave and Industrial love to torture us with. And then ‘Succumb’ happens, which is a twisted Thrash Metal song, with a very Faith No More mixed with Kreator vibe going on… Stromstad is some kind of human music hadron collider very much in the vein of the clown prince of Metal, Devin Townsend, and is similarly intrepid and unconcerned with how his music is perceived by the listener, preferring to just get it fucking recorded and out there. The problem with this sort of music is that it can sound a little confused at times as disparate influences clash against each other.
Not with Box, though. This is a remarkably clean and accessible album. The title track cannot help but remind Dark Juan of Sleep Token and Ghost, having the same pop sensibilities and hooks of the Swedish pseudo devil worshippers and whateverthefuck Sleep Token is, yet with Stromstad using a very classic rock style of vocal (although the multitalented wanker can sing in a number of different styles) with a squelchy industrial synth providing the backbone of the song. It has a massive chorus, too.
‘Devayne’s Lament’ reminds this jaded metal hack of a Danzig song introduction before launching into such a Ten Years Aftery riff it made me weep for joy. And then there’s French horns and all kinds of mad shit on there before a syncopated jazz break – this tune could be the “Miasma” of the record but without the filthy dirty saxual (sic) shenanigans from Papa Nihil. ‘Liberate’ starts with an, ahem… liberating mix of darkwave, synthwave and gothic magnificence that is reminiscent of Depeche Mode and Gunship in their pomp with the classic rock vocal adding a certain satisfying yet uncomfortable, unsteadying dimension to the music.
‘Lifetaker’ appears to have been recorded circa 1987 and sent forward through time, representing the zeitgeist of 80s metal in every single way from the most overblown vocal, the glammest keyboards ever, to the stomp-a-thon tempo (apart from the middle eight, where it appears that Stromstad had a small seizure whilst operating the drum machine) and the mid and high-pitched howling, the fucking HUGE chorus and the string bent guitar solo. It’s a mental fucking record this. Just when you think you have got a grip on the slippery bastard, Andrew Stromstad wriggles from your grasp and rushes, giggling maniacally, down yet another musical alley, leaving you to breathlessly chase him once more. ‘Pulse’ is almost pure industrial metal combined with a proper mournful shoegaze vocal, apart from the chorus, where he is clearly channeling the more insane aspects of Faith No More’s Mike Patton and Swans’ Michael Gira AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME which is really quite dangerous for the universe at large, considering the amount of damage this could cause at the quantum level. Then, just for shits and giggles, he turns it up to thrash metal velocity and tells us he hates us all and decides to do a full on Devin at us. This is what I mean when you can’t get a grip on the music. It’s highly polished and greased at the same time and you only have a fleeting second to get hold of it before it belts off into the ether, trailing a sonic boom and mocking laughter after it…
It is this puckish, playful idiosyncrasy I like so much about Box. I’m always banging on about music having to be inventive and interesting lest it stagnate. Box have taken a different approach, having employed a modern, pin sharp production and contemporary influences (the current explosion of 80s revivalism due to Stranger Things and synthwave reminding us of Airwolf and Miami Vice, metal in many forms and a sense of fun that has Dark Juan imagining Mr. Multi-Talented Bastard Stromstad giggling hysterically to himself as he welds a typically overwrought 80s U2-esque chorus to chugging guitars and the soaring, atmospheric synths of Carpenter Brut and the occasional feral growl) and melded them to a classic metal aesthetic in a way that can’t be described as anything other than revolutionary. It’s absolutely fucking brilliant and will never fail to take the listener on a journey through sound. It is EVERYTHING. It is heavy, it is thrashy, it is heartbreakingly sad, it is doomy, it is more mental than Mr. Bungle, it is pure atmosphere and it is sheer eclecticism DONE RIGHT on record.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System has listened to this album four times back-to-back, much to the chagrin of Mrs Dark Juan who has gone upstairs to do some decorating. I should be helping her, but she won’t let me hang wallpaper because I am “Really, REALLY shit at it.” Which is a verbatim quote from the Formidable One herself. I didn’t think I was so bad, myself. Anyway, Box get a big fat fucking 10/10 for a fantastically eclectic record that has something for nearly everyone, apart from fucking gatekeepers, who will absolutely hate Box. Which is a point in the band’s favour, to be honest.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Succumb
02. Pulse
03. Soft Is The Motion
04. Cherry Blossoms At Night
05. Lifetaker
06. Devayne’s Lament
07. Spread
08. Liberate
LINE-UP:
Andrew Stromstad: Vocals/drums/bass/guitars/synths/strings (violin/cello)/various horns (trumpet/trombone/french horn) and strange auxiliary instruments/percussion. Fucking trying to make us mere mortals look bad, eh? (This is only jealousy talking. I have about one string to my bow and I don’t even do that one thing well.)
LINKS:
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