Reinvent yourself, do it right: Black Country's new album, New Road

To sum up the not even ten years of existence of Black Country, New Road is a feat. The multi-instrumentalist band formed in 2018, named after a road in the West Midlands, which leapt into the eyes of the seven youngsters after clicking on the 'random article' button on Wikipedia. The band had risen from the ashes of another experience, closed without even releasing the recorded record, due to allegations of sexual assault against the then lead singer. The thriving scene revolving around the Windmill pub in Brixton quickly made them known, like their friends Squid and Black Midi, throughout London, and they found themselves signed to the Ninja Tune label in the year of the pandemic, releasing their debut album in February 2021: despite its strong experimentalism, 'For the First Time', with its six tracks and forty minutes of duration, went as high as number four in the UK charts and won over the press.

At the end of 2021, Black Country, New Road, in order, announced their second album, cancelled a European tour due to the indisposition of a member, released an Ep of covers. Four days before the arrival of 'Ants From Up There', singer Isac Woods leaves the band. However, the sextet can still toast their third place in the charts and, despite various side projects - and what projects, Jockstrap, Ugly, Good With Parents - they go back on tour, resumed in 2023 and set in the live album and documentary 'Live at Bush Hall'. During the breaks between concerts, in soundchecks and hotel rooms, the eleven tracks of the third album 'Forever Howlong' come to life. They are mainly written by the women of the group, Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery and May Kershaw, and retain the most marked trait of Black Country, New Road, that sonic eclecticism that makes them move with ease from folk echoes to prog interlocks, interweaving lush chamber pop reflections with the rust of guitars that have never quite died down.

In the beginning, there were the Beatles. At least, that's how it sounds listening to the atmospheres of 'Besties', in which, however, verses like 'I know I want something more' immediately make it clear that 'Forever Howlong' holds many surprises, something that Black Country, New Road know how to do very well on their albums. After a finale that, like the intro, relies on layers of vocals, the mood turns lysergic with the swirling, theatrical 'The Big Spin'. In an album that for Tyler Hyde is characterised by "a rather broad spectrum of femininity", with its texture of vocals, 'Mary' is certainly one of its most fascinating moments. It is preceded by "Two Horses" and "Socks", two six-minute songs, interspersed with "Salem Sisters", a triptych that almost seems like a single flow, an emotional up and down in which voice and piano moments alternate, waves of horns crashing on angular guitars, rhythmic chases, choruses, epic turns that bring to mind the best Arcade Fire. The pair 'Happy Birthday' and 'For the Cold Country' are at extremes: the former was easy to arrange, the latter the exact opposite. But the result is excellent in both. "I fell in love with a feeling", sings the band in "Goodbye (Don't Tell Me)", one of the most beautiful tracks on the album, an album that, in spite of everything, enjoys great inspiration.