In the last few months leading up to the release of Burn Your Own Church, there has certainly been plenty of hints that Black Strobe’s highly-anticipated debut artist album wasn’t simply going to be business-as-usual for electro-house heads expecting more club 12”s along the lines of Me & Madonna and Chemical Sweet Girl. Perhaps the biggest indication of a significant shift in direction occurred late last year with the departure of Ivan Smagghe, with the high-profile DJ leaving because he was apparently uncomfortable with his performance responsibilities as part of the act’s increasingly band-oriented live incarnation. In the wake of Smagghe’s departure, Black Strobe mastermind Arnaud Rebotini has recruited the skills of Dave Shaw and Benjamin Beaulieu on guitars/bass and drums respectively, swelling the Strobe into a three-piece band proper and giving further credence to his early statements to the effect that his debut was never strictly speaking, going to be a straight ‘dance’ album per se. The choice of Paul ‘Phones’ Epworth’ as co-producer (Bloc Party/The Rapture) and indie / goth legend Alan Moulder (NIN/My Bloody Valentine) on mixing duties also further confirms that the likes of Get Physical and International Deejay Gigolos probably aren’t the sorts of comparison points that Rebotini was aiming for – more likely Bauhaus and Violator-era Depeche Mode.

Opening track Brena Di Ega Kjerke (the album’s title translated into Norwegian) shows this distinctly large-engined collection flexing its powerful muscle from the very out, with slowly bleeping electronics gathering around a 4/4 bass drum pulse until it builds into sinister-hued shimmering italo-house that collides halfway with furious black metal guitar riffage, the entire beast moving forward with fearsome propulsive force, before tumbling into in arsenal of Metallica-esque double-tap kick drums. From there, Shining Bright Star makes an appearance in a slightly different form to its recent single release, the electro-dance rhythms pushed down further in the mix in favour of slinky, angular goth/new wave bass slaps that call to mind more than a hint of Trent Reznor as Rebotini’s deep baritone vocals fuse with the infected-sounding synths and poisoned disco hi-hats.

Girl Next Door certainly makes good on Rebotini’s promise of non-dance oriented explorations, offering up stripped-back downbeat atmospheres built around delicate analogue keys and strummed acoustic guitars that suddenly sweep out into deep washes of widescreen synthetic orchestration reminiscent of Depeche’s Black Celebration, before Black Shut Eyes (the only track here featuring lyrics by Rebotini rather than Smagghe) slams the electro-industrial rhythms straight back to the forefront as evil distorted rave synths build into a frenzy atop growling guitar feedback, slamming live rock cymbals and twisted robotic vocoding in what’s easily one of this record’s most turbocharged dancefloor moments.

Second single I’m A Man meanwhile easily provides one of this album’s most immediately arresting inclusions as well as an ingenious fusion of wiry goth-electro rock and Southern blues that goes off with an unexpected bang, taking the original Bo Diddley track off an overdriven tribal-drum laden trajectory that suggests Chris Isaak on some psycho death-trip, sinuous Sisters Of Mercy guitars curling around buzzing analogue noise bursts and Rebotini’s Yello-esque deadpan basso vocals. The appropriately-titled Buzz Buzz Buzz in contrast represents perhaps the last vestiges of Black Strobe’s former signature dark electro-house approach amongst the eleven tracks gathered here, laying down six minutes of paranoiac, industrial-edged techno that suggests most closely the steel-plated dark-rave thump of Empirion and latter-period Front 242.

Burn Your Own Church certainly shows Rebotini making good on his promise that Black Strobe’s debut album wouldn’t simply be a collection of dance 12”s. Indeed, given the fact that it adeptly traverses so many divergent moods and styles over its eleven tracks, pretty much without putting a foot wrong, this collection emerges as far more of a ‘proper’ album listening experience than many other similar releases to emerge this year, and the masterful enhancements afforded to it by Epworth and Moulder’s sterling touch simply serves to bring out the degree of production edge these high-powered tracks deserve.

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