Black Strobe - 'Burn Your Own Church' (Playlouder) Released 18/06/07

Only Black Strobe could have released an album in the midst of the great dance revival of 2007 and decide to, well, burn their own church. As a statement, the album title could be read as a play on the words of the Chemical Brothers, or even as a piss-take on the biblical obsessions of fellow Parisians Justice. But when you consider that Black Strobe – the duo whose productions, remixes and DJing dates have lifted them to higher eschelons of the electronic music hierarchy – have released a dance album that owes as much to black metal as it does to techno, it’s hard to read it as being about anyone but themselves.

Take, for example, the loss of Ivan Smagghe. Black Strobe, you see, are no longer the Black Strobe that created 'Me and Madonna', 'Chemical Sweet Girl', or 'Paris Acid City'. Smagghe, we are led to believe, has opted out of the album sessions in an “amicable” parting from sidekick Arnaud Rebotini. How much the industrial rock sound of this album has to do with Rebotini is open to debate – after all, Smagghe did write most of the lyrics, while the album’s most clubby track, Buzz Buzz Buzz, is precisely the kind of hard, bleak techno he’d drop in his sets. But, in a recent interview, the part-time Dysfunctional Family member refused to go into any detail concerning the recording of this album. Hardly the joy of a proud father.

And then, there's the reinvention of Black Strobe as a live band. Once the dark lords of clinical, metallic electro-inflected house, Black Strobe is now Rebotini, joined by a full compliment of rock musicians so that 'Burn Your Own Church' can be recreated live (incidentally, this reviewer imagines the sound of this record live as being something akin to Slayer jamming with !!!. We can but pray).