1) An Intelligence Test (in Mercury)  The theme of time is instantly introduced with the ticking of a great clock (or possibly just a metronome), followed by an explosion of bold guitar chords which are ultimately superseded by the keyboard-riff at the centre of the piece. Yes, NTDF use their keyboards like a lead instrument. Yes, it works. Yes, even if you don't like Gary Numan. All swirling guitars and assured drums, this track is a good example of how NTDF combine the pomposity of a stadium prog band with the punch of punk, the playful wonder of psychedelia and the delicate, introverted touch of post-punk and "indie". The Floydian bridge later in the song both contrasts and fits in with the earlier song and helps underline how hard the band have thought about the structure of their songs.
        Like some of the stadium bands alluded to above, NTDF do not shy away from the big themes and concepts. The lyrics and music work together here to suggest tightly-wound modern panic and paranoia giving way to a sort of post-apocalyptic calm zen acceptance of our living at the whim of evil puppet masters. Combine this with my earlier time-travel theories and the Vonnegut references can hardly come as a shock.
        2) Disinformation    For the Clash's first album, Joe Strummer rewrote a song about Mick Jones' girlfriend ("I'm So Bored With You") as a stutteringly articulate commentary on American cultural hegemony ("I'm So Bored of the USA"), a track which would sit far more comfortably amongst the subject matter of their future output. Similarly, NTDF have rewritten a tale of unrequited love ("Hollywood Melodrama of the 1950s") as their most explicit political commentary to date ("Disinformation"). I dislike band-to-band comparisons but imagining this track might be easier if you did think of the Clash, then Manics tracks like "Faster" and "Revol" and then made them somewhat more oblique. This is the only time anyone has ever got away with using the phrase Weapons of Mass Destruction in a song (these things are all in the delivery and context) and that is probably important to bear in mind when I tell you about ...
        3) Music For Idiots    ... which incredibly manages to pull off: "When the revolution comes/You will be the first against the wall" without a wince in sight. In fact "Music For Idiots" ia something of a live favourite, the haunting Dr. Who keyboards being strangely danceable. Themetically, it seems to tackle the issue of "dumbing down" but from the point of view of a human being as opposed to, say, that of the "Daily Mail". This is the theme tune to a society caught up in a whirlpool which is spinning faster and faster just before it gets sucked around the u-bend.
        4) Freud    There's an underlying keyboard part in this that could be made by a circuit board or an actual piano - such is the NTDF organic/electronic interface. Also, music hacks are fond of "screaming guitars" - these are more subtle ... "siren song guitars?" ... hmmm. Another highlight is the high camp of vocals: "How nice!"
        The ticking sense of time running out returns; as does the kitchen-sink mixture of politics (a less literal Clash or M.S.P.), psychedelia (esp. Floyd) and existential angst (an angrier Cure?) - this is like the band equivalent of a Renaissance Man, polyglot scholar or schizophrenic.
        5) My Pretend Girlfriend    Music magazines like MOJO celebrate a broad genre of music labelled "Americana". Is it then possible to group peculiarly English artists singing about a peculiarly English whimsical experience under some sort of flag of Anglicana? The conversation at the foot of the flagpole between Ray Davies, Syd Barrett's ghost, Damon Albarn and Pete Doherty would probably be less stimulating than the lyrics but this track would not be out of place on the front of magazine CD.
        "My Pretend Girlfriend" would almost work as one of those semi-mainstream "indie" ballads - as long as no one listened too carefully to the playful guitar line and alternately sweet and random lyrics about the girl of the title with "foibles so feeble" being balanced against her finer traits but treated with equal affection.
        6) Viva La Resistance    This is generally the most popular track on the album. Incorporating a genuinely great and novel riff, a satisfyingly flatulent bassline and a neat buzz roll, "Viva La Resistance" epitomises NTDF's ability to make implicit socio-political commentary without ever quite crossing over into that territory occupied by cheap sloganeering and oversimplification. They have paid for their Poetic Licence and are not about to lose it for the sake of sounding like a copy of the "Socialist Worker". Besides, they have a sense of humour and an all-pervading sense of fun.
        7) The Overloaded Man    Using the quiet/loud/quiet/loud formula so beloved of bands in the 90s for their own purposes, NTDF subject one of their typically disconnected protagonists to a harrowing account of his emasculated and de-sensitised existence (or, as its author would have it, "retreating into a fantasy world of shapes and colours"). I detect good use of the noble theramin and am impressed by the retrieval of the song from the noize.
        8) I am Ahab!    is a circus music/sea shanty/post-rock adventure with breakneck lyrical delivery, throwing up such glorious exclamations as "I am Ahab but I am in the wrong whale!" Best enjoyed by those who didn't enjoy Herman Melville: "What a strange end to my rubbish adventure!"
        9) Samenra et la Boite Diabolique    This is the track from which the album gleans its title - speculating broadly as it does on the unusual wonders gathered within its enigmatic cardboard sleeve. Here, however, it refers to a track which tells the tale of a sort of mythological gameshow (Pandora's Box meets The Price Is Right). This is rendered over a slightly-Gallic-organy sounding thing with extremely theatrical vocals. Pure and unusual genius. And just a little disconcerting.
        10) Errol Face    Originally called the "Dmitri Files", this is now an instrumental number where drums beat out a confident tattoo whilst palm-muted guitars gradually coalesce into something both more meaty and more fuzzy and an oft-repeated note struck on the guitar resembling the horn on a clown's car and novelty bass gradually accelerating into the noize of insanity.