Many things can change in three nights, let alone in over a year. Over a year ago, in fact, Black Country, New Road lost its passionate lead singer Isaac Wood, since he decided he wanted to focus on his mental well-being. Last week, the band, instead of getting stuck in the past and grasping at its old albums, wrote entirely new material to perform live in three nights at Bush Hall, in London.
I am not going to lie, I was worried. I was worried because I thought that without Isaac, BC,NR would not be the same. And on one hand, I was right, the band is not the same. But is that such a negative thing?
After their successes For The First Time and 2022’s grandiose Ants from Up There, BC,NR has now released their brand new live album Live From Bush Hall, and there is a lot to say.
The album starts with an enthralling and almost electric song, ‘Up Song’, sung by a woman, May Kershaw, who is joined by the rest of the band Tyler Hyde and Lewis Evans during the uplifting chorus. There is an abyssal difference between the tone this new material assumes compared to the group’s old stuff. There is still a melancholy that I can’t fully put my finger on that surrounds all the songs, but Wood’s almost desperation is nowhere to be seen. It is a full rebirth and fresh start for the British post-punk indie-rock band.
Imagine being in a meadow, in another time, an old-time, almost fable-like. That is the exact vibe that ‘The Boy’ possesses, with magical flutes and staccato singing, adventuring in a chorus where I would not be surprised to see butterflies flying around. BC,NR’s signature trumpets and compelling percussions enchant everything around them, almost in a child-like way, as if the singer was telling a story, divided into chapters and with no true end. Actually, it is a story, between made-up characters Robin and Deer. The former asks, during an epiphany: “Who am I to think that my selfish genes should keep going on? Can I be the father? Like I dreamt I might?” But Deer knew. Deer knew and he “hoped” it was.
This album is not that cascade of emotion that Ants from Up There has been. There is no resolution like the one in ‘The Place Where He Inserted The Blade’, no pain like the one in ‘Bread Song’ and no nostalgia like the one in ‘Concorde’. However, there is much more. There is proof that a band if it has the right priorities in mind, will keep making music like their life depended on it. That it doesn’t matter if members leave, because, from that loss, a meadow of purple flowers can, eventually, blossom.
‘I Won’t Always Love You’, with shaky vocals and cadent melodies, is a beautiful statement of resilience and ultimate love declaration. “I needed you so I could learn more. Who knows what you needed me for?” The last sentence before the song opens up in a Kate Bush and Carmen Consoli-esque ballad, full of anger and with the objective of reclaiming one’s dignity.
But the real star of the night is the hauntingly devastating ‘Laughing Song’. A 5-minute-something-long song that starts with a feeble flute and trembling violin, before the comforting vocals start to reminisce about a happier time. The lyrics deserve a spot among the greatest love songs of all time, even if is a love that ended badly, oh so badly.
“There were many things that he saw that no one else has seen in me before. Well, what does that say? What does that say? When you’ve accepted no one else will see you clear like that ever again”, the frontwoman almost wails. But so quietly, almost as if she is the only one who wants to be heard.
The grand opening and resolution of the melody, focused towards the middle of the song after drums that resemble a fading heartbeat, happens just after the middle of the track. It is a fresh wound, a deep secret that BC,NR decided to share with all of us. And what an honour it has been. The end of the song explodes in a relentless list of all the names of the tracks of the record.
There are multiple personalities in this record, such as the timeless and dissonant ‘The Wrong Trousers’ and the tear-jerking ‘Turbines/Pig’, which almost sounds like a lullaby. Like the other lovestruck moments on Live at Bush Hall, the song speaks about a consuming relationship, the kind that leaves you with nothing but the privilege of utter vulnerability and self-hatred. The piano melody is classical and persists throughout the whole nine minutes of the song. The growth is slow and painful, and it feels like it never resolves. But at the end, right at the end, the instruments come together in a waterfall of sounds. It sounds like an orchestra, it sounds like BC,NR is only getting started.
And ‘Dancers’ too reprises the band’s own story, people who lost everything found it back by picking up a trumpet and a microphone.
Live from Bush Hall is a fairytale with a specific beginning, but no end in sight. With their musical talent, BC,NR are in safe hands and, most importantly, have not lost any of that drive that produced their previous masterpieces. It is a complicated record, these new songs are not to take for granted or lightly. The vocals are impressive just like their musical ability, perfectly moulded in each other, with extra energy compared to the band’s previous work. The crescendos, the spells, and the tears that this album has on its shoulders are not comparable to the young band’s already-impressive portfolio, but perhaps, just perhaps… they are so much more.
Words by Silvia Pellegrino