Black Country, New Road share new single

Single release: out now
Label: Ninja Tune
More info: Black Country, New Road’s website

Black Country, New Road return today with their new single “Track X”. The track is the latest to be taken from their much-anticipated debut album “For the first time”, which is out on February 5th 2021 via Ninja Tune.

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Having never been played live before “Track X” is an entirely new offering from the band and is a distinct change of pace from their previous output. Following on from their minimalist and foreboding single, “Science Fair”, the pensive new track is built around gentle cyclical guitar, bass and sax motifs, the instrumentation is intermittently interposed by discordant staccato strings before morphing into softer more melodic lines alongside mellifluous synth and cooing backing vocals. Speaking about the new single, frontman Isaac Wood says: 

“Track X is a song we first worked on in 2018 but one that never made it out into our live performances. We decided to resurrect it during the recording of For the first time and assemble it in the studio. The story is old but a good one and worth telling. We believe that people will enjoy singing along.”

As with the previous single, “Track X” is paired to a video directed by Bart Price who said the following about its themes:

“The music video for ‘Track X’ is about nostalgia for being a kid and happy times with family, stupid moments with friends like feeding Cheetos to a giant horde of birds in a Walmart parking lot, and for Tumblr and YouTube videos of cats. But at the same time balanced with this is a comment on the transience of the past, like with the shots of the abandoned houses, and a sense that maybe what we remember isn’t quite real, like the idealised stock footage. I wanted to combine all of those emotions and thoughts together and make a 2000s style American home video.”

Alongside the new single the band have also announced details of a new London headline date to celebrate the release of their debut album at Queen Elizabeth Hall – Southbank Centre on March 6th. The event will be livestreamed globally – full details + tickets are available HERE. The news follows the band having to reschedule their pre-planned UK / EU tour dates until later in the year due to ongoing restrictions surrounding the pandemic – updated routing below.

Black Country, New Road’s live performances gaining legendary status among fans of the emerging scene that coalesced around vaunted south London venue The Windmill, and which gave rise to many of their peers and contemporaries such as Fat White Family, black midi and Squid, artists with whom they have variously supported, toured with and collaborated with over the years.

The band also recently teamed up for a collaborative performance with black midi under the name Black Midi, New Road. The livestreamed performance was part of a fundraiser for The Windmill Brixton, which raised over £9K for the venue.

The band will play the following dates in 2021:

06/03/2021 – Queen Elizabeth Hall – Southbank Centre, London – United Kingdom (LIVESTREAM)
14/09/2021 – Electric Ballroom, London – United Kingdom
23/10/2021 – Bumann & Sohn, Cologne – Germany
24/10/2021 – Orangerie, Brussels – Belgium
25/10/2021 – Le Trabendo, Paris – France
27/10/2021 – Le Grand Mix, Tourcoing – France
28/10/2021 – Le Lieu Unique, Nantes – France
29/10/2021 – Rock School Barbey, Bordeaux – France
30/10/2021 – Dabadaba, Donostia – Spain
01/11/2021 – ZDB, Lisbon – Portugal
02/11/2021 – El Sol, Madrid – Spain
03/11/2021 – Laut, Barcelona – Spain
05/11/2021 – Circolo della Musica, Turin – Italy
06/11/2021 – Bogen F, Zurich – Switzerland
08/11/2021 – Underdogs, Prague – Czech Republic
09/11/2021 – Lido, Berlin – Germany
10/11/2021 – Hydrozagadka, Warsaw – Poland
11/11/2021 – Transcentury Update Warm-Up @ UT Connewitz, Leipzig – Germany
12/11/2021 – Banhof St Pauli, Hamburg – Germany
14/11/2021 – Le Guess Who?, Utrecht – Netherlands
16/11/2021 – Paradiso Noord, Amsterdam – Netherlands
29/11/2021 – Chalk, Brighton – United Kingdom
30/11/2021 – Junction 1, Cambridge – United Kingdom
01/12/2021 – 1865, Southampton – United Kingdom
03/12/2021 – Arts Club, Liverpool – United Kingdom
04/12/2021 – Irish Center, Leeds – United Kingdom
06/12/2021 – The Ritz, Manchester – United Kingdom
07/12/2021 – NUSU, Newcastle – United Kingdom
08/12/2021 – SWG3 – TV Studio, Glasgow – United Kingdom
09/12/2021 – The Mill, Birmingham – United Kingdom
10/12/2021 – Waterfront, Norwich – United Kingdom
12/12/2021 – SWX, Bristol – United Kingdom
13/12/2021 – Y Plas, Cardiff – United Kingdom
15/12/2021 – Whelans, Dublin – Ireland

Tickets are available HERE

Recorded with Andy Savours (My Bloody Valentine) during the early part of this year and then finished at the end of the nationwide lock-down, the album is the perfect capturing of a new band and all the energy, ferocity and explosive charge that comes with that whilst also clearly the work of a group who have no interest in repetition, one-note approaches or letting creative stagnation set in. Featuring six new songs including reinterpretations of early tracks “Sunglasses” and “Athens, France”, “For the first time” is a sonic time capsule that somehow manages to bottle the past, the present and the future.

“We wanted it to sound exactly how we love to sound live,” says saxophonist Lewis Evans. “This is basically representative of our first 18 months”, continues Isaac. 

Indeed the band found they had to stop themselves running too far ahead in order to document this album in a way that felt as truthful as possible. 

“We see this as being a stop in the road” explains Isaac.  I’ve always been interested in a really honest portrayal of what a band is and what they’ve been working on. I think it’s really nice if people can see an artist like: this was them in the early days, this was their next phase and that they’re quit
e clear and honest about genuine progression as people and musicians.”Despite having released just those two early singles before the announcement of their LP, Black Country, New Road – their name originally found on a random Wikipedia generator – have made an impressive impact on fans and critics alike. Declared “the best band in the world” by The Quietus, with glowing reviews from The New York Times to The Guardian, a cover feature for Loud & Quiet, a live BBC 6 Music session, selling out shows across the country (including 1700 tickets in London), being invited to festivals around the world including Primavera and Glastonbury, and finding themselves on French TV sandwiched between Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien.

‘For the first time’ will be available on Limited Edition White LP [with exclusive negative sleeve], Black LP, CD, as well as Cassette (BC,NR store only). There will also be a limited number of hand stamped, numbered & signed Test Pressings available from the BC,NR store.

Pre-order the album HERE.

Black Country, New Road are:

May Kershaw – Keys
Charlie Wayne – Drums
Luke Mark – Guitar
Isaac Wood – Vocals/Guitar
Tyler Hyde – Bass
Lewis Evans – Sax
Georgia Ellery – Violin

Find Black Country, New Road online:

Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | TikTok | Spotify | Apple | Soundcloud | YouTube  | Bandcamp

Selected praise for Black Country, New Road:

“This feels like everything a rock band can do.” – Loud & Quiet (10/10)

“I hear echoes of lots of sounds I love in them – an angular, dynamic, Louisville post-rock base; a wailing saxophone and screeching violin; and meaty, diffuse lyrics that sometimes even remind me of Mark E Smith. They’re a bit like the fantasy band I had in my head when I was young.” – Aidan Moffat, Arab Strap

“Hearing the band play ‘Sunglasses’ in a subterranean Parisian TV studio earlier this year was a pre-Coronavirus highlight. The song is a tune… not straightforward, but it takes you on a journey and they seem to have already found their own sound. I love their collective passion for what they do. So good to be in their orbit that day, I hope we can do it again.” – Ed O’Brien, Radiohead

“The best band in the world right now” – The Quietus

“Funny, vivid and anthemic.” – The Guardian

“If the world needs saving, maybe they’re the band to do it” – The FADER

“Hypnotic and brilliantly chaotic” – DIY

“Three near perfect singles under their belts and a blinding debut album ready to go.” – The Quietus, Tracks Of The Year

“A post-punk rhapsody” – NY Times

“A violent affair of glorious noise-rock.” – So Young

“Hilarious and terrifying” – Uncut

“Black Country, New Road capture life’s absurdity and cruelty in a ghastly post-punk odyssey.” – PASTE

“One of the most exciting bands of Britain’s experimental new breed.” – Mojo

“One of the most sought-after UK indie bands.” – Music Week

“Clashing and anxious but fused with the golden threads of poetry” – Gigwise

“A verge-of-hysteria horror-romance story” – MOJO

“Ones to keep your eyes and ears on.” – The 405

“A hugely exciting new band, who harness everything from post-punk to klezmer” – Evening Standard

“Their discursively free-wheeling compositions usher post-rock, noise-rock, and free-jazz down a road well worth traveling.” – Stereogum Best New Bands of 2020

“On the cusp of a debut that comes good on all the obtuse, esoteric groundwork they’ve spent the past two years laying” – DIY, Class of 2020

“It is razor sharp as you might imagine, darkly comic, completely impossible to box, and I love it for all those reasons” – Mary Anne Hobbs

“Just loving how gargantuan and risky this is, really fucking with this, really messing with it” – Anthony Fantano (The Needle Drop)

Black Country, New Road
For the first time
Out February 5th on Ninja Tune

1. Instrumental
2. Athens, France
3. Science Fair
4. Sunglasses
5. Track X
6. Opus

Further details on art direction and open source imagery:

The “For the first time” album cover and its related imagery have all been selected from Unsplash, the internet’s source of freely-usable images, creating an aesthetic for the band that is freed from their specific context. Any image can come from a diverse global range of photographers, in a way that feels
more reflective of the visually eclectic nature of the digital age we are in and that the band have grown up in. The band chose to credit Unsplash and the photographer on the cover artwork itself, as a decision to let their audience into the process and invite them to join in in engaging with this growing open source culture.

As with earlier imagery, the band were emphatic about a sincerity in terms of showing friends, community and a sense of coming together, reflecting their own relationship as a long-term seven person band and close-knit friendship group since their youth.

More information on Black Country, New Road:

For many bands two songs is not a lot to go on. It’s a jumping off point or a sketch of what’s to come – it’s the primitive construction of a group’s artistic foundations. Yet Black Country, New Road propelled themselves far and wide from their first two offerings to the world via 2019’s ‘Athens, France’ and ‘Sunglasses’.

What followed was being declared “the best band in the world” by The Quietus, glowing reviews from The New York Times to The Guardian, landing on the front cover of Loud & Quiet, a live BBC 6 Music session, selling out shows across the country including 3 shows totalling 1700 tickets in London, being invited to festivals in far flung places such as Slovenia and Lithuania, scheduled on prestigious festivals such as Primavera and Glastonbury, performing with an orchestra, and finding themselves on French TV sandwiched between Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien. Their live performances gaining legendary status among fans of the emerging scene that coalesced around vaunted south London venue The Windmill, and which gave rise to many of their peers and contemporaries such as Fat White Family, black midi and Squid, artists with whom they have variously supported, toured with and collaborated with over the years.  

However, despite the band coming out seemingly fully formed and bristling with a wiry tension that merged post-rock soundscapes with jazz-inflected post-punk, their debut album manages to straddle a perfect line between this early period incarnation and their ever burgeoning evolution. “We’ve matured a lot since we recorded those two tracks,” says saxophonist Lewis Evans, who makes up the band along with May Kershaw (keys), Charlie Wayne (drums), Luke Mark (guitar), Isaac Wood (vocals/guitar), Tyler Hyde (bass) and Georgia Ellery (violin). 

Those two initial singles have been re-recorded here to fit in tonally with the rest of the tracks – all of which were recorded live over a six-day period in March with producer Andy Savours. The resulting album is one that reflects where the band were as a unit after a year of heavy touring. This was a place where deft, free-flowing and intuitive playing melded with tightly coiled eruptive moments. The new version of ‘Sunglasses’ begins with buzzing and crackling guitars unfurling in almost drone-like churns, whilst ‘Athens, France’ employs space thoughtfully, unravelling as a looser groove. “We wanted it to sound exactly how we love to sound live,” says Evans. 

The tweaks to the previously recorded tracks of course further enhances the connection to more recent live performances but it was also a way to sprinkle in a sense of the band’s ceaseless forward momentum. “We wanted to change some stuff musically just to get it into a shape that was more relevant to how we were playing it live now,” says Wood. “To have continuity of sound.”

Lyrics have been fine-tuned too, along with a subtler leaning towards singing from Wood, shifting from the spoken word approach of earlier material. “Speaking lyrics made sense at the time and was what I was comfortable with while learning to be a frontman,” he says. “Some things lend themselves to being spoken but there’s space for things to be sung – which feels more natural and less intense. It doesn’t always make sense for me to have this very aggressive spoken word over things – there’s room to perform in harmony with the band.” 

The result captures the band’s early musical propensities, whilst also making room for their progressions and nuances. “We’ve since learnt our best asset,” says Evans. “We can play quietly. We’ve taken that and used it so it’s more dynamic. Intensity worked for us with those early recordings, like ‘oh my god this band is so intense and angsty’, but this record is a much more considered approach.”

Originally hailing from Cambridge and surrounding areas, and having played together in various guises over the years, as Black Country, New Road, they soon found they had a deep rooted sense of harmony and unity as their core foundation. Some members go as far back as being classmates at school, some would go on to live together, whilst others also went to University together. This has created a cohesive spirit and profound bond in the band that is reflected in their instinctive collective creativity. Yet despite being such a forceful unit they are also avid explorers individually. Many members play in other genre-spanning bands, have solo projects and collaborate with other artists. On top of this, the band’s background of melding classically trained players with self-taught ones also results in a unique concoction, combining precise technical skill with a raw, and often unpredictable, primal essence. 

This finds the band intrinsically connected to those very early intense days whilst also heavily expanding on them. “The music was honest for the time,” says Wood.  “But it’s just not necessarily honest anymore for it to be this overwhelmingly tense thing. There’s still intensity throughout the record but it’s just a very different type of intensity.”

As Wood points out, to suggest this record is void of intensity would be a disservice but it does contain a more refined intensity. This balance between tension and release, along with opening up more moments for pause and reflection, can be felt throughout. The opening ‘Instrumental’, which takes shape from Evans and Ellery’s background performing klezmer music, is bright, punchy and sprightly, whereas ‘Track X’ unfurls in gently looping melodies, rich vocal harmonies and finds the band plundering a deep sense of poignancy and tenderness. ‘Science Fair’ places discordant guitars against warm strings before erupting in a screeching cacophony of both and the closing ‘Opus’ acts as a bookend for the album, as yet another klezmer-inspired number builds to a crescendo that feels like hurtling towards the end of a cliff top. The band has essentially found a way to make silences and spaces just as impactful as noise and chaos.  

Very much a collection of tracks aimed to reflect their live set, perhaps the most cohesive thread to be found running through the album is an approach to honesty. The band had to stop themselves running too far ahead in order to document this album in a way they felt was as truthful as possible. “This is representative of our first 18 months and then we’re going to put a stop in the road,” says Wood. “I’m interested in a really honest portrayal of what a band is.  It’s nice if people can see an artist’s phases and they’re quite clear and honest about their genuine progression as people and musicians.”

Even though Wood tweaked pre-existing lyrics that too was a balancing act between authenticity and evolution. “I edited things to a point where I was happy and comfortable with them but I made a conscious effort not to get rid of every line that I didn’t like because these songs have to be at least in some way honest.”

Ultimately the album is the perfect capturing of a new band and all the energy, ferocity and explosive charge that comes with that whilst also clearly the work of a group who have no interest in repetition, one-note approaches or letting creative stagnation set i
n. For the First Time is a sonic time capsule that somehow manages to bottle the past, the present and the future.