BOX OFFICE POISON Beyond The Twilight Zone (Future Legend)

No biog with this, so I’ll share with you the hype printed on the back of the (appallingly designed, I have to say) cover:

"As music became blander and more homogenised, the pop stars more plastic and videos as exciting as wallpaper, a flicker of light came forth from beyond the twilight zone. It came from a dimension where innovation and originality were not dirty words. The name of this entity was "Box Office Poison". Their innovation and unique sound featuring Punk and Classical Cello, Sax, Harpsichord, Koto, Percussion and two stylish female vocalists along with a different songwriting and Production approach looks set to expand the boundaries of pop well into the next Century.

At first their was a massive resistance from within the music industry, but the public and especially people who considered themselves sang in unison - at last there was something refreshingly different to get excited about. The U.K. record industry which had been about to become a backwater for talent and innovation was saved, and once again was at the forefront of the pop industry. As usual it took an independent to save it...".

Well, thanks for that. What with nothing except albums from The Chemical Brothers, Primal Scream, Radiohead, Spiritualized and The Verve to keep discerning ears occupied this year, I’m up for ‘something refreshingly different to get excited about’. Hang on a minute, though, it says ©1995 here. Well, what with nothing except albums from The Chemical Brothers, Primal Scream, Radiohead, Spiritualized and The Verve to keep discerning ears occupied during 1995... Anyway, after all this trumpeting, wouldn’t you be expecting something of at least "Astral Weeks"/ "Revolver"/ "What’s Going On"/ "Pet Sounds" calibre?

What Box Office Poison (Ronald Rage, Jo Sharp, Debbie Detroit and Russell Writer to their parents, although possibly not) offer is more like a pub rock Sandy Denny spouting sixth-form cliches about insanity (very sub-"Dark Side Of The Moon" that), teenage angst, having sex with aliens and (scary!) ‘the future’ over a background of cheap synths and the odd saxophone honk (please, you are playing the same musical instrument as John Coltrane did, treat it with a little more respect!). This is what The Bond would sound like if they recorded in someone’s bedroom with a production budget of 50p; it also brings back unhappy memories of the Khabbra album I reviewed in the last issue