Review Summary: Under Construction
Isaac Wood’s unexpected departure on the heels of
Ants From Up There put Black Country New Road in an unenviable position. The collective were showered with acclaim for their obvious compositional prowess, but Isaac had been the distinctive voice to shape the band with effortless turns of phrases that ranged from timely (“she had Billie Eilish style”) to timeless (the entirety of “The Place Where He Inserted The Blade”). Rather than try to replace him, the band would instead clear the table and start anew, opting to only perform new songs written without him as a way to honor his irreplaceable stature.
Live From Bush Hall found the band testing the waters with a collection of songs that, while a bit safe in construction and fanservice-y in the lyrics department (“look at what we made together/BCNR friends forever!”), passed with flying colors. It was clear the band still had plenty of creative juice in the tank, and the prospect of sunnier, more equitable Black Country New Road became a rather intriguing one. Any doubts that the group were still capable of being worthwhile were put to bed with a collection of eclectic, confident tunes; I was convinced they could not only persist, but thrive.
So, uh, can someone tell that to Black Country New Road?
Forever Howlong sounds like a band unsure of itself, aiming in a lot of directions but not quite knowing when to settle in and pull the trigger. Broadly speaking, Black Country New Road have traded in any semblance of their post-punk and post-rock leanings for proggy medieval rock that redresses the group as a woman-lead band of wandering troubadours. It’s a playful, interesting direction to press on with, and the decision to rotate vocals between the three women is an excellent one (each are distinctly great), but the biggest change lies in the band mechanically removing any brakes from their writing, having to slow their speed with zig after zag. In other words, it’s a mess. This is most emblematic with the nigh incomprehensible “Socks,” whose only constant is a janky stop-start structure, as if the band are turning the ignition in vain on a dead car. There are bits and pieces of vaudevillian triumph scattered throughout, but you’d be hard pressed to recall them as Tyler Hyde’s (again, great!) vocals refuse to relent and allow any breathing room, creating the effect of a run-on sentence. She and the band fare far better on “Nancy Tries to Take the Night,” as the song crests quite nicely into a facsimile of the band’s grander works but they unfortunately pull back before the song can truly go anywhere special.
The most frustrating aspect is that I actually do see the vision. The new direction is at its strongest when the band ventures into a sort of progressive Fleetwood Mac direction, with some Julia Holter thrown in for good measure. “Besties” is a rousing good time that continues the celebratory friendship angle from
Bush Hall’s “Up Song” with a rather victorious sounding arrangement (that guitar lick rules!) and Georgia Ellery’s whimsical vocal performance (“I’m a walking Tik Tok trend” is an incredibly sticky lyric). “Two Horses” provides one of the most outright fun moments in the band’s career that culminates into a mandolin-lead hootenanny of despair. Both “The Big Spin” and “Salem Sisters” are good little art pop tunes that are catchy as hell (May’s pitch jumps in the former are sublime, the latter makes a convincing case for the best Tyler-led song in their catalog), both benefiting greatly from their abbreviated runtime. While “Mary” and “Goodbye (Don’t Tell Me)” don’t particularly jump off the page, they would make perfectly fine connective tissue in an album with a bit more restraint.
All in all,
Forever Howlong feels like a missed opportunity. There are enough good bits to show that the band are as capable as ever of crafting a spellbinding moment, but there’s a frustrating lack of direction or commitment that prevents these moments from ever coalescing. More than anything, it feels like a puzzling first draft that draws me in (the sunny prog and rotating vocals are good!), but provides little reason to stay once the bombast has lost its luster. In the leadup to
Howlong’s release, the band had repeatedly maintained the transitional nature of the songs moving into a new era for the band. The description couldn’t be more apt with the breakneck pacing and refusal to ever really settle in. I have little doubt that this new version of Black Country New Road will eventually produce some great music (I’d argue
Bush Hall did just that), but I don’t want to help them with the move.
