Live Review: Black Country, New Road at Rough Trade, Bristol


Black Country New Road



We’re only three quarters of the way through the year and so it’s a little early to analyse, but it’s been well reported that jazz has made something of an unlikely comeback in 2019.

It’s a sweeping soundbite that isn’t entirely true, but it does have some basis in reality. Although SEED Ensemble’s recent Mercury nomination could arguably be dismissed as the ‘token world music entry’, it’s harder to ignore the inroads that The Comet Is Coming are making. Those might be more traditional jazz ensembles, but the influence of the genre is strongly felt elsewhere.

Despite comprising the key components of a rock/indie band, black midi completely ignore traditional ideas such as structure, their music giving the impression of spontaneity and therefore creativity. Similarly, Squid are not bound by the trappings of the rules and, as simple as it sounds, incorporate brass seamlessly. The barriers are being broken down.

Also leading the charge are Black Country, New Road. Tonight’s (October 1st) gig in Bristol is one of many sold-out shows the band are playing on an autumn tour, despite having only two songs in the public domain. More a collective than a group, the seven-piece have an air of ‘the only kids at school who took music seriously’, yet have a maturity beyond their years.

The saxophonist takes his place front and centre, but when Isaac Woods eventually begins singing it’s curious to see his voice emanating from stage right. Woods probably only sings for 25% of the set, fluctuating between raconteur and spurned outsider, and laudably adapts his singing style to the mood of the music (crooning when slow, intense punk when frantic), and so the positions of the band act as a mission statement: the music is king.

If it wasn’t still a disparaging phrase, the music could be described as prog-rock, in that it progresses, but that’s underselling it. It’s a forty-five minute set and at most it consists of six songs, although it’s hard to gauge as the songs could be structured as such to flow into each other. More accurately, they are pieces of music (as found in opera as well as jazz) rather than songs. It’s free-flowing but never indulgent, meandering but not flabby. The music is so immersive but has such striking rhythmic shifts that it truly is impossible to guess where they are going.

What started as a poignant violin lament could become danceable Balkan electronica, via a sweeping bass driven swell of emotional heft. Although the band seem disinterested, lyrical references to black midi comparisons and conversational observations (‘why don’t you sing in an English accent’) imply that their music may reach for the stars, but their minds are firmly on terra alpha and are savvy enough to see how reviews such as this will go.

The septet all have individual moments to shine, be it opening bass-lines, the industrial guitar or violin solos, but the highlights are when all are contributing to the intense build-ups to the cacophony of noise, particularly on the relentless brute force of the closing moments of Sunglasses. Rehearsals must be a nightmare.

So many labels could be and are applied. Post-prog-jazz-art-rock, or some combination of any of the above other but Black Country, New Road are impossible to quantify. In their own controlled and measured way they are an anarchic tour de force.



Just know that they inhabit their own unique musical world and have invited us to see certain corners of it.

(Richard Bowes)


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