The release of the eagerly awaited follow-up to last February’s enigmatic, sometimes impenetrable Black Country, New Road debut For the First Time has been overshadowed by the recent and unexpected departure of frontman and principal lyricist Isaac Wood. Upon first listening to the sprawling and opaque sophomore release Ants from Up There, you can’t help feeling a little sympathy for Wood’s decision to suddenly up sticks. Comparisons with Syd Barrett, another Cambridgeshire frontman who jettisoned early in his band’s life may come to pass but if this is Wood’s farewell gift we certainly wish him well.
There is no doubt that everything has been left on this strangely alluring Pink Floyd meets Arcade Fire record, released on Ninja Tune. It’s as if someone has attached a USB port to Wood’s head and downloaded everything from his overloaded mind … song ideas, private thoughts, Billie Eilish, Concordes, wacky arrangements, unexpected left turns, leaving just an empty husk behind.
Frenetic exodus themed ‘Chaos Space Machine’ boasts a vaudevillian feel, apt as the lyrics take us westward across the Atlantic towards its spiritual home. An insistent sax/violin melody outro includes tempo anchors suddenly jamming on like the end of a rollercoaster ride. In contrast, ‘Concorde’ waltzes serenely back and forth, a tender tale of enduring love in sickness and in health, perhaps reprised in ‘The Place Where He Inserted the Blade”.
Doomed romance rears its ugly head in the woozy and fiendishly clever ‘Bread Song’, the recalcitrant object of affection making her feelings clear, aggravated by her desperate suitor’s unfortunate and very blokey decision to eat toast in bed. “This place is not for any man, nor particles of bread” delivers one of the album’s wittiest put-downs, the stale crumbs symptomatic of the feelings between them.
The nagging melody of ‘Snow Globes’ tugs at you like a five-year-old child passing confectionery in a supermarket. Wood’s voice is eerily redolent of Neil Hannon as he repeatedly wails “Oh, god of weather, Henry knows, Snow globes don’t shake on their own,”. It’s almost as if he’s singing with his fingers jammed into his ears, his eyes screwed shut. Veering between chaos and silence, you sometimes get the sense of Wood the faceless prophet of doom standing on a soapbox in some nondescript town centre ranting to anyone who dares to stop and listen.
12-minute closer and mini-opera ‘Basketball Shoes’ feels a bit like one Frankensong too far, a fused mad professor style from a myriad of cutting room odds and sods. In time, I hope I come to appreciate its ambition, after all this album has “grower” written all over it.
With Wood a fading memory, one is loath to do a disservice to the remaining sextet, namely Tyler Hyde (bass) Lewis Evans (Sax) Georgia Ellery (Violin), May Kershaw (Keys), Charlie Wayne (drums), and Luke Mark (guitar). All certainly contribute to this beautifully batshit long-player and only time will tell whether they survive as a going concern post Wood. History provides examples of both outcomes but the pressure will be on to match the accomplishment this record oozes
Words by Michael Price.
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