Album Review: Black Country, New Road - For the first time
Whenever a previously untested band manages to stumble onto something as emphatically unique as For the first time, there will always appear alongside their success a wave of contrarian detractors, steadfast in their refusal to accept the new hotness for what it is and ready to decry it through unflattering comparisons to its predecessors. The long-awaited debut record from Black Country, New Road is no exception, but even if the considerable hype generated by the London-based punk group’s highly touted singles and iconic live performances provides an easy excuse for declaring the album overrated, the most surprising aspect of the final product in front of us is just how coherently the band’s vision was actualized. Ultimately, trying to describe the entirety of what For the first time has to offer is a futile endeavour for many reasons, not the least of which being that this album is absolutely incredible, a chaotic furor of ingenuity worth approaching on its own terms and appreciating on its own merits. Few inaugural records would dare to take as many risks as this one; the fact that so many of its outlandish ideas turn out immaculate would be reason enough to celebrate For the first time even if it weren’t this astoundingly excellent.
Of course, all this backlash is largely the product of an excessively vocal minority inventing reasons to become incensed; the vast majority of people who decide to give this record a try will understand within the first minutes of Instrumental that they have something uncommonly brilliant in front of them. Opening with foreboding bass notes underscoring a frenetic drum solo, the track soon broadens into a delightfully novel combination of guitar, saxophone, and a quirky synthesizer; the variety in the album’s abnormal instrumentals is one of its greatest assets, with this composition being (fittingly) the clearest demonstration as to why. Its melodies fold in on themselves as the piece evolves, never quite settling into a familiar time signature and maintaining a delectable tension that ebbs and flows throughout. The only constant throughout its five and a half minutes is the groove: dynamic, anxious, and culminating in a panicked sax solo that would fit right at home on David Bowie’s Blackstar.
Similarly intricate themes constitute some of the most exciting moments on tracks like Science Fair and Sunglasses; the former’s energy is particularly manic, a fitting personification for the panicked sense of drunken confusion detailed by lead vocalist Isaac Wood. This track and the preceding Athens, France are the first real tastes the record offers of his acerbic pen game, and his metaphor-laden stories of sordid encounters at a science fair and a Cirque de Soleil performance are appreciably intriguing, if a little obtuse. The group’s earliest singles have undergone notable revisions in being rerecorded for this album, including lyrical edits to replace some of the more explicit lines that likely seemed egregious in hindsight; certain quotable omissions will be missed (“And fuck me like you mean it this time, Isaac!”), but the effect is overall a positive one. The math rock-tinged Athens, France offers some amusing references to these changes (“And write the words I’ll one day wish that I had never said/Now all that I became must die before the forum thread”), even if a few regrettable lines still found their way into the final draft: “It’s a one size fits all hardcore cyber fetish early noughties ‘zine/She sells matcha shots to pay for printing costs and a PR team”. In any case, considering how much time the band has to mature past their first project, that so much of their music is already this proficient should not go unappreciated.
The material that Black Country, New Road have come up with for their debut album is eclectic, to say the least; much of it defies genre, or at least resists classification beyond the vague label of ‘experimental’. Take the lengthy closer Opus: within its first minute, the band introduces, develops, then abandons a tranquil duet of violin and saxophone, as if to prove that ending the record on anything resembling complacency is simply not an option. From its ashes, they pivot instantaneously to a forceful delirium of driving percussion and guitar, all while the aforementioned sax goes off the rails in a wild display of euphoria. The two moods trade off for the remainder of the song’s eight minute runtime, skirting the edges of art punk and post-rock as Isaac sluggishly intones with an unusually poetic melancholy: “I guess I should’ve had something to say/And now everybody’s coming up/What we built must fall to the rising flames”. Elsewhere on the record, splashes of dream pop à la American Football (Track X) and progressive rock (the opening minutes of Sunglasses) find their way into a miasma of discordant punk riffs and complex art rock; the abrasive instrumentation that permeates parts of Science Fair even nears the unrestrained cacophony of free jazz at times. Black Country, New Road and their music may not seem an easy sell on paper, but those who can appreciate the subtler side of punk and aren’t turned off by the idea of diverse and lengthy compositions will find much to love here.
For many fans, the cynicism and self-referential wit on display here is one of the band’s most distinct selling points, an aspect that distinguishes them within the recent revival of post-punk from peers such as IDLES and black midi. Where those groups often fumble at being facetious and end up either sounding self-righteous or completely nonsensical, Isaac Wood and company largely hit a precise balance between thoughtful intensity and humorously referring to themselves as “the world’s second-best Slint tribute act”. As amusing as their nods to Scott Walker and Phoebe Bridgers are, however, the ten-minute odyssey of Sunglasses and its fable of privilege and ego is easily the album’s lyrical high point. Its slick guitar line is one of the album’s more comfortable melodies, yet for all Isaac Wood’s proclamations of “I am invincible in these sunglasses”, shielding his face from the world cannot protect him from the refrain of his own self-doubt: “I am so ignorant now, with all that I have learnt”. Eventually, the track turns into a discordant struggle between Isaac’s fractured ego and his girlfriend’s bitter resentment, culminating in a contemptuous mantra of vanity and schadenfreude: “I’m more than adequate/Leave Kanye out of this”. Sure, the band’s early adopters will likely miss the original version’s unpolished charm, but the glorious insanity that takes over the song’s latter half is immensely powerful in either rendition.
When a work of art as anomalous as this appears out of nowhere, our instinctive response is to retreat into the realm of what is familiar, trying to make sense of the new using what we already know and understand. For the first time challenges with its very existence the validity of that approach, asking the listener to trust that something that appears utterly alien can simultaneously offer both immediate enjoyment and a staggering depth for those who wish to venture further into unknown territory. Ultimately, this album doesn't really sound like Slint or Godspeed You! Black Emperor or black midi; it sounds like itself, and whether or not that appeals to you is ultimately up to Black Country, New Road themselves, not any of their influences. What For the first time offers cannot be found anywhere else, and considering how much the fledgling band got right on their first try, the sheer potential their future holds is frightening to imagine.
9.5/10
Favourite Tracks: Instrumental, Sunglasses, Opus, Science Fair