Pitchfork

Gentlemen of the jury who still just can't get enough '80s nostalgia, I give you Elefant. On 2003's Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid, the New York foursome passably reprised the dreary disdain of then newly re-trendy influences like the Cure, the Smiths, the Psychedelic Furs, and Joy Division, with faint glances shoeward. Since then, they've teamed with Disney subsidiary Hollywood, which affords them the considerable services of producer Don Gilmore (Dashboard Confessional, Linkin Park, and Duran Duran-- on their 2004 reunion flop). Black Magic Show is more obvious than its already duh predecessor, but otherwise differs only in gorgeous frontman Diego Garcia's apparent discoveries of gothic musical theater and Russian expat literature.

Elefant's latest is only as deep as its clenched-jaw fake-Brit hooks. The catchiest, "It's a Shame", turns out to be a jangles-on-ice "Lovesong" rip, or ri-hi-hip-- Garcia likes to Mozzify. Garcia doesn't exactly earn the showstopper key change closing "The Clown"-- let alone the Harold Faltermeyer guitar wank-- repeating couplets that rhyme 'cause they hafta. "It's just a way/ A way that we play," he offers, or elsewhere, "The first time was the worst/ Now I thirst." NYC applause lines jut from "The Lunatic", which despite the portentous title possesses a boringly post-9/11 mindset: "Manhattan are you up or down?/ Manhattan are you still around?" Good thing Mickey Mouse is stingy, 'cause the only thing worse than the fake strings on cruise-control love ballad "Why" would be real strings.

Sometimes, as Borges wrote, a show within a show raises the possibility that we, too, are fictitious, but here as in most post-Sgt. Pepper's pop it signals a band's futile fumbling for significance. Introducing this Show, the theatrical title track sets a vaguely Eastern European rhythm to non sequiturs about devils and kings that almost suggest a storyline. "The freaks have come out tonight," Garcia warns more typically, adding, "There's no difference between wrong and right." A similarly predictable melodrama pervades reverso-Louis-XIV groupie lament "Brasil" and eyes-red, flowers-dead "My Apology". Michael Crawford never suffered a chorus like this: "You're killing me with your eyes/ You're killing me with your lies."

Then there's first single "Lolita", bane of my existence, tepid scourge of my tired ears. Lo. Lee. Ta. Yes, it's about that Dolores Haze, the cynical nymphet so well-loved and ill-used by one Humbert Humbert. But even kids who don't know Nabokov like this detective guitar jigsaw better on "Hash Pipe" or, shudder, "Juicebox". They, too, will grimace at the song's empty-headed apex: "I shout out loud, Lolita/ You are my heart and soul!" Garcia should've just plagiarized-- assuming he read the book.