La Boite Diabolique – A Lovely Box of Chocolates – 7″ (2012)

Labels: Eat A Book – sncl
Review by: MH

This is the first release I’ve heard by La Boite Diabolique having slept for far too long on the “œOther Band Tape” that came out last year (which I have since rectified). I do have a number of records by some of the band members’ other bands though, particularly Snowman and What Price, Wonderland? This 7inch is a mini-album. There are seven songs here, six of which hover around the 1 minute mark. There is a hint of Polaris in the sound although it’s faster than what they used to do. Apart from that and the obvious similarities to What Price, Wonderland? I am struggling to compare this to much else. There is a similar urgency to some of the music but the vocals are much more restrained than WPW? and the sound a lot crisper so it’s still quite far removed from them. There is a fair amount of harmonising in the vocals too and you can hear pretty much every word – not a scream or yell in sight. I really like the way the vocals fit and the variation in them – there are some talky parts and even a few higher pitched vocals. From the off, I absolutely love the guitar sound here – the chiming rings and rhythm on the opening track draw me in instantly and the ringing hammering on some of the songs is sublime. Going back to the rhythm thing “” this record will really get your toes tapping “” every song on here will. It’s pretty jangly at times and the guitar work is quite intricate and chaotic. I wouldn’t call this frenetic though – not in the way other purveyors of short songs like Mohinder were for a start. Whilst the songs are short I don’t get the feeling that they need to be extended to make more of them – they just work brilliantly as they are and fit in plenty of variation in rhythm, stops, starts and changes of pace. In fact, it doesn’t really cross my mind while listening that these songs are very short. It’s innovative and I don’t see them following any latest fad (that was never going to be in the equation though). The talky “Regards, La Boite Diabolique” has a jumpy beat before leading into my favourite track on here -  the brilliant “œП (aka Square With a Line Missing)” which has some quirky lyrics and appears to be about exactly what the song title says it’s about (unless there’s a hidden metaphor I’m missing which is more than likely!). The closing track “œOcarina” is almost twice the length of the other songs at 2 minutes 17 seconds and cranks up the vocal harmonies again whilst continuing the shapes theme in the lyrics – triangles this time. I should say something about the song titles too as calling them things like “Shakezbeer” and “Massive Fucking Garlic” is more than alright by me. 



I also think they’ve absolutely nailed it on the sound/recording of this record “” they’ve got that exactly right. This really is outstanding and for that reason I’m not even going to nit-pick about the French pronunciation of the word “œdiabolique”. Their blog says that they hope this will be liked by “more than the two people putting out the record. Three people if we’re lucky”. They can add me to the list now. This is the type of band that gets me excited about new music. This really delivers – superb stuff.