While vocally mercurial and esoteric, there are tons of interesting lyrical ideas on For the first time. ‘Athens, France’ shakes its overt influences off before too long, while ‘Science Fair’ pits Luke Mark’s jagged guitars against Lewis Evans’ yakety sax and Georgia Ellery’s spiralling violin. A Issac Wood knowingly quips on ‘Science Fair’, there is more to Black Country, New Road than merely being “the world’s second-best Slint tribute act. Opening with the intricate but groovy klezmer-influenced ‘instrumental’, which builds to a frantic sax-led climax, For the first time, comprises half a dozen songs (including new versions of those early singles), and clocks in at almost 41 minutes. The narrator’s relationship has now completely broken down and he struggles to free himself from the snobbery and falseness he feels ensnared by. The final act sees the angular guitars joined by looping sax, the music and melodramatic delivery from Wood growing in intensity with each repetition of the mantra “I’m more than adequate”. An angular, staccato guitar riff signals the second act in which Wood attributes his newfound, ill-formed self-assuredness to his sunglasses, presenting a voyeuristic, downward punching take on his surroundings, befuddled by the young punks and afraid of working class youths but safely “locked away in a high-tech, wraparound, translucent blue-tinted fortress / And you cannot touch me”. As a descending saxophone lick comes crashing down around him, frontman Issac Wood bleats “I am ignorant now, with all that I have learned”. The first sees our narrator describes himself getting lost not in the six-part Danish drama he is watching, but in his own ruminations on how he is effectively becoming his rich girlfriend’s father, resentful of all things lower class. A near 10-minute prog rock epic, the song plays out an intriguing narrative over three acts, lyrically and musically. The plaudits only became more intense with the release of ‘Sunglasses’ later that same year. And Fontaines D.C and Girl Band before that. The track, which boasted the best Slint riff this side of Spiderland alongside some striking saxophone and shimmering keys, inspired the usual music press hyperbole the latest outpouring of praise for “the most interesting guitar band in the world right now”, right off the back of their peers in black midi getting the same treatment the year before. A performance at London’s Brixton Windmill caught the attention of producer Dan Carey (Squid, Fontaines D.C., black midi), who swiftly ushered them into his studio in Streatham to record their debut single, ‘Athens, France’, released in January 2019. The sextet formed in Cambridge in the summer of 2018 from the ashes of another project. Overnight success is so hot right now, and Black Country, New Road are the latest craze. By Danny Kilmartin 0 Black Country, New Road – For the first time
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