The Artist: Black Country, New Road
Formed in South London in 2018, Black Country, New Road emerged from the same Brixton Windmill scene as Squid and Black Midi - but they were always harder to pin down.
Less math-rock chaos, more emotional sleight of hand. Their debut (For the First Time, 2021) was angular, cryptic, shot through with klezmer and post-punk. It got Mercury-nominated. Critics were obsessed.
And then, just before their second album’s release, frontman Isaac Wood left the band. Mental health. A quiet goodbye.
What they left behind was Ants From Up There - a parting letter. Recorded live to tape in a remote Welsh studio, it’s more expansive, more open-hearted. Gone are the jagged riffs and nervous detours. In their place: clarinets, violins, saxophones, slow-burn crescendos. It’s beautiful. Wounded. Unbearably vulnerable.
The band continued without him, but Ants From Up There is the last time they sounded like this.
The Record: Ants From Up There (2022)
It opens with Intro - a 54 second, theatrical curtain raise. Then Chaos Space Marine, tumbling and euphoric like a band breaking free of their own skin.
Concorde arrives slowly, like something sinking. Isaac’s vocals are low, hesitant-then rising into that skyward refrain. A love song that doesn’t beg. It breaks.
By Bread Song, the record starts to slow. Space opens up. Words fall apart mid-sentence. Good Will Hunting sounds almost pop - strange pop, off-centre, full of strings and longing.
Then the centrepiece: Snow Globes. Nine minutes of repetition, restraint and eventual collapse. It rises and falls like the tide.
The closer, Basketball Shoes, has existed since their earliest gigs - but here it becomes something mythic. It swells, falters, swells again. It doesn’t end so much as vanish.
For a record so full of noise, it’s the silences that stay with you.
Play Now:
🔊 Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
Start With:
- Concorde - Heartbreak, held just out of reach
- Bread Song - Whispered intimacy and emotional collapse
- Basketball Shoes - The long goodbye