Black Country, New Road, live review: London band bring new album Forever Howlong to Leeds venue Project House
Black Country, New Road have been defying traditional band narratives for as long as they’ve been around.
Even before songwriter, singer and guitarist Isaac Wood left just days before the release of their astonishing second album Ants From Up There in 2022, the then-seven-piece were already proving peerless with their undefinable and ever morphing sound, which just started truly getting attention as the Covid lockdown hit.
Now, three years on, the group has released its third album, Forever Howlong, with vocal duties shared by the band’s three female members. And while the overriding sense of yearning and aching insecurity has been replaced with a twee and heart filled essence, their remarkable capabilities and unconventional song structures are still just as engrossing.
Cramped onto the stage amid their countless instruments in front of a sun-kissed and feverish audience at Project House in Leeds, the six members showcased their extraordinary musicianship this week.
The set saw them generally run through the new record’s track listing, meaning that the album’s joyful opener Besties set things off to a fittingly exalting start.
Singer Georgia Ellery’s more conventional and melodic vocals mean Besties and her other two tracks prove more immediately gratifying and the prog-inspired Two Horses, with its mandolin twinkles and travellers tale that descends into a tragic and frantic finale, understandably gets the biggest response of the night.
The tracks are each as fascinating as the last though and the constant change of instruments, sometimes mid-song, only further emphasises their depth of intrigue. Guitarist Luke Mark credited the collaborative ethos of The Band as a recent inspiration and that subtle emphasis on each member having their own space without it ever detracting from the whole sets them apart.
The lilting vocal melodies are a constant throughout, such as on the solemn, Tyler Hyde-lead Mary, which ends with beautiful flourishes on the flute from Lewis Evans.
Then again on the May Kershaw-led ‘For The Cold Country’s, the astonishing blend of individual brilliance and collective distinction is rarely as apparent. The song’s gradual build around a story of a knight whose best days are being them ends with a devastating crescendo (which took my breath away upon hearing it when they supported Nick Cave last year) before the angelic harmonies bring it to a safe landing.
The Kershaw-led title track sees the five other members take up recorders, and while the minimal, school-like number a sobering moment at the end of the album, the riotous chatter from those less interested around the bar area can’t be ignored in this instance.
There’s no encore or songs from the group’s excellent initial post-Wood release, Live At Bush Hall, which means that Happy Birthday, which with its crunching guitars makes it the closest thing to resemble the band’s earlier days, finishes things in celebratory fashion.
Not an easy band to sing along to and one you can’t help but root for considering their rocky route and brilliant talent, it proves a satisfying and triumphant finale.