A triumphant Melbourne show proves Black Country, New Road were never going to fall apart.
How do you release two critically acclaimed albums characterised by your frontman’s once-in-a-generation ability to craft emotional storyboards, have that frontman leave and still live to tell the tale to five-thousand punters halfway across the world?
Ask Black Country, New Road.
Having made a name for themselves in the same South London scene that produced art-rock luminaries Black Midi and The Last Dinner Party, the past four years have been nothing short of challenging for a band consistently described as one of Britain’s finest.
In 2022, just four days before the release of the band’s sophomore album ‘Ants from Up There’, frontman and core songwriter Isaac Wood stepped away from Black Country, New Road as he dealt with the fallout of recurring mental health struggles. While the band continued as a six-piece, they promptly announced that the Wood-penned material would be dropped from their set.
With that in mind, touring obligations quickly turned into de-facto rehearsal sessions, treated as a place to test new material, often written just days earlier.
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However, if the songs played on their 2024 Australian tour were a cautious first step at a band trying to find their footing following Wood’s departure, their brand-new album ‘Forever Howlong’ and subsequent live show has provided the six-piece with a whole new lease of life.
It’s difficult to discuss the new era of Black Country, New Road without making reference to Wood’s departure, so much so, that it is the topic of discussion for four teenagers standing in front of me as the band makes their way onto Melbourne’s Palace Foreshore. Yet, as the house lights dim and Georgia Ellery’s mandolin takes centre stage, any chatter of Wood is soon forgotten.
Over the course of the evening, it becomes apparent that the six-piece are noticeably confident in their new material, with tracks from ‘Forever Howlong’ making up eleven of the thirteen song setlist.
While the album takes cues from the heavily orchestrated arrangements of folk-star Joanna Newsom and the Americana-infused country rock of The Band, the freedom of a live setting allows all these influences to synthesise into something distinctly BCNR-shaped.
With a new vocal trio of bass player Tyler Hyde, violinist Georgia Ellery, and pianist May Kershaw solidified, the three multi-instrumentalists trade songs that all uniquely encapsulate friendship, love and the female experience. The three-part harmonies that they conjure up are a consistent highlight while saxophone player Lewis Evans, guitarist Luke Mark and drummer Charlie Wayne support the arrangements with a deep-set baroque sensibility.
While all accomplished musicians, there is something undeniably endearing about the way the band presents itself that is worth mentioning. Whether it’s Evans spotted in the crowd drinking during Way Dynamic’s opening set or the band choosing to execute their own line-check prior to the first song, it’s easy to see why their legion of parasocial teenage fans are so drawn to the personalities within the band. Bemused by the size of the crowd, drummer Charlie Wayne can’t help but ask, ‘I don’t know who Ed Sheeran is playing to tonight, because you’re all here’.
Although BCNR’s set is absent of any big singalongs and dancing is kept to a light sway at best, the five-thousand strong crowd hangs off every note, undoubtedly enamoured with the musicianship on display.
As if they were challenged to before the show, blink and you may miss each member of the band picking up a different instrument, just as accomplished on it as the one they had put down. On the sultry, finger-picked ‘Mary’, Wayne trades his drumsticks for a banjo while the album’s title track sees himself, Mark and Evans simultaneously pull out recorders. At one point, Hyde even grabs a bow to play her guitar with, seemingly looking like Jimmy Page while doing so.
Elsewhere, the band’s signature blend of baroque-infused orchestral grandeur on ‘Besties’ is undeniably stunning while it’s hard to ignore the parallels between Hyde’s lyrics on ‘Happy Birthday’ and the Palestinian flag that is draped over Kershaw’s keyboard. ‘Many people would give an arm and a limb, to live where you live’ yelps Hyde before urging her collection of young fans to keep using their voice surrounding Palestinian freedom later in the night.
Tennessee power-pop group Big Star gets a name drop as a band that inspired ‘Forever Howlong’, while album highlight ‘For The Cold Country’ closes proceedings, fizzing like a band pushing a song past breaking point with its triumphant orchestral crescendo. As the a cappella three-part harmonies of Hyde, Ellery and Kershaw signal the show’s completion, the same teenagers that had earlier debated Wood’s departure now had their arms wrapped around one another in joyful exuberance.
In that moment, it’s hard to believe why Britain’s boldest experimentalists were ever questioned at all.
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