Black Country, New Road -- Ants From Up There

Black Country, New Road -- Ants From Up There

[Ninja Tune]

Sorry for the late return, I've been on vacation for three months but I'm back baby! and better than ever!

On January 31st, 2022, four days before the release of Black Country, New Road’s second record Ants From Up There, lead singer, lyricist, and guitarist Isaac Wood permanently left the band’s lineup. With a lengthy text post on Twitter, the band announced his departure along with the news that their US tour this year would be cancelled. Blast on a blank white background is the announcement, glaring against my face like a eulogy in the Sunday paper, informing me of the worst news I’ve heard this week.

I must admit, I am a huge BCNR fan. I remember hearing their breakout single “Sunglasses” in 2019 and absolutely loving it. In its glorious 9-minute runtime, the single fascinated me, sounding like a unique combo of Slint and Sonny Sharrock that I never knew I needed so badly. I remember showing it to as many friends as I could leading up to the release of their debut last year, For the first time, which also blew me away. For the next year, I spun that record a couple hundred times in preparation for this record, Ants From Up There, released to Ninja Tune on February 4th, four days after the departure of Isaac Wood.

This record, like the first one, absolutely entranced me, but in a completely different way than the other. At 59 minutes, this album packs four more tracks than the debut. And like the debut, it also features long-awaited renditions of live show favorites like “Bread Song”, “Snow Globes”, and the album’s magnum opus “Basketball Shoes”. But unlike the debut, Ants From Up There completely turns the band’s sound on its head and sticks the landing.

This album’s sound lands somewhere in between Arcade Fire’s Funeral, Slint’s Spiderland, and Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever. It has a style that’s so derivative of a bunch of influences but is still so unique. It combines the chamber textures of warm saxophones and violins with the heavy jangle of the guitars and drums which still reek of post-punk fog. It comes off as honestly quite jarring at first but with time, develops an itch in your brain that only the album can scratch.

The vocals are, as always, chillingly delightful. Wood’s lamenting tone shows even more range than on the debut sounding like, what my friend described as, “monster mash emo”. His performances on the lead single “Concorde” and “Basketball Shoes” are especially highlights and the sugar sweet harmonies on “Good Will Hunting” are fantastic. It’s hard to think that we’ll never get to hear these songs live like this ever—really makes the album feel like a living relic.

The lyrics of Ants From Up There is the painting at the museum that you just can’t stop staring at. They grab your attention which rich sensory details and quirky conversational tidbits so at the end of the album, your head will be a swirling word soup of organs, Concordes, bread crumbs, clamps, and Billie Eilish. The Genius pages of the songs give much more explanation on what they mean, but I think I like it that way—keeping things so ambiguous that the album can mean whatever I want to, or nothing at all.

As far as I can tell, Ants From Up There is a collection of forlorn love songs following a life-changing separation from a lover. The album’s narrator is freaking out, losing sight of the people they love, and holding onto to some semblance of attachment, warmth, the hand of someone else. “Concorde” tells of post-breakup yearning, using this image of a Concorde commercial airliner to symbolize the lover whose departure is heart-breaking but necessary: “Isaac will Suffer, Concorde will Fly”.

“Chaos Space Marine” is the album’s freaky intro that honestly doesn’t remind me of any band at all. The incredible energy of each of the instruments feels like the overture of the album’s sound and lyrical content. “Bread Song” is a ballad completely detached from any concrete weight, feeling like a cry in your throat that’s coming but you don’t know when—the song also uses this brilliant symbol of bread crumbs to discuss baggage and how we push people away with our burdens.

“Haldern” is an ear candy track with beautiful swells of instrumentation pushing along a dirge about an unrequited love. “The Place Where He Inserted The Blade” is the most un-BCNR cut on the record but is an absolute blast. Its fantastical sway and doo-wop chorus makes it the cutest song BCNR has ever written.

Finally, the hulking “Basketball Shoes” takes up the entire final side of the album, telling a prolonged sex fantasy with pop star Charlie XCX. I know, I know, it sounds weird, and it is—but the song rings with more heart-wrenching sincerity than any other track on the record, projecting the emptiness left by the breakup onto this wet dream. Its three phases, lingering motifs, slow builds, and pop punk finish work to elevate the brilliant vocal performance from Wood which feels more human than ever, and his tortured screams in the final section feels like the fittingly epic farewell to the singer that we never wanted to leave.

I think it’s fair to say that not even BCNR knows where to go from here. Off the back of a brilliant sophomore record that centered even more around vocals than the debut, the band loses, arguably, their most unique asset. Again, I don’t mean to downplay the brilliant performances of the rest of the band, but I must say that no one sang like Isaac Wood did with BCNR. And while the goodbye is bittersweet, Ants From Up There features some of the best rock performances of the year and will be remembered as a classic for long after.

Isaac, I hope you find peace of mind and good health. In our bedsheets now wet, of you we try to forget. All I’ve been forms the drone, we sing the rest. Oh your generous loan to us, your crippling interest.

9.8/10.

"Concorde"