What’s better than this: gals being pals
Not even a decade ago, vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, I and many witnessed the rough beast of a new breed of flamboyant post-punk slouch towards Brixton to be born. Along the far-growing list of band names for losers like me to poke into our little screens with our most pretentious index fingers (for me it’s the right one, she’s who told me to make the first line a Yeats reference), the underground Brixton venues sprouted out a few which boasted the most theatrics: HMLTD, Black Midi, and Black Country, New Road.
Cut back to present day: Black Midi have been brought to a halt, as perceptive readers might remember; HMLTD are still kicking about in spite of their many curses, and I’ve listed them here solely to sabotage my point midway through itself; and Black Country, New Road had found themselves in some turmoil when their lead singer Isaac Wood amicably stepped away from the project for his own wellbeing, a week before the release of their critically-acclaimed sophomore Ants From Up There.
Losing such a key, identifiable part of the band should have spelt hell: Isaac Wood’s insane delivery took the best tones out of Mark E. Smith, coupled with that one guy you used to know who was always four Hooches away from yell-crying in the middle of Spoons, and tilted the emotional rudder of the band’s art to a splintering type of romance. But it takes a village, and Black Country, New Road has always been as much a creation of the talent of all those who remain, who stepped to the plate first in their Live at Bush Hall album, now to the band’s third studio release. Splitting the vocal duties for Forever Howlong is Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery (Also of Jockstrap notoriety), and May Kershaw, and where the previous Wood-based vocals had painted the latent musical theatrish undercurrent towards a more Harold Pinter-y tone, this one heads for performances a bit further back in the centuries.
Out comes the harpsichord, punching out into the opening, lead single Besties. Yes, this certainly is an album about friendship, as many online reviewer-types (ugh) are happy to stop at. Hey, if it did stop there that would be cushty and all, sincerely why not have more songs about girls being friends? But let’s not skirt over the line “Fill my cup (I get wet)” and act like everyone was just roommates. And Midnight Cowboy is a film about two guys just being great bros together, of course. Cut the whimsical covering of friendship, soundtracked like a frolic through a flower-field in the sun, and this album has all the tension, longing, and unease the band has been known for, dressed in sunnier colours.
Take the title track, Forever Howlong, where May Kershaw brings a decidedly first-person walk incurring visions of her own death, alongside prolonged eye-contact with a shitting dog, is only interrupted as she comes back to “thinking whether she’s sobbing in the men’s room again”. So much is left on the table by the solitary glimpse of this friend, whether her being placed in the men’s room was by force of one person, or by a population which has decided for her that’s where she belongs. A jump on the latter possibly, but the “Turn off the TV, old man” later pleaded to a guy across the street sure sounds like a similar sentiment I share for many of the elder residents of our little TERF island.
Instrumentally, a decidedly far more acoustic approach takes place, with tracks Salem Sisters and Happy Birthday being about the few instances of an electric guitar getting any forward-facing play. Otherwise, it’s kicked back into the background, where it and the people who play that instrument belong, and largely relegated for an acoustic. Far more prominence is instead given to the interweaving textures of flute, saxophone, and violin, borne out best in Nancy Tries to Take the Night. The little orchestra meanders and floats on, until the drums lock all into a John Cage-ish overlap of time-varied loops, pointed, but yet again lulling in repetition. And then once it rips away from this, well, let’s say that the track proves to be one of the most imaginative pieces the band have committed to all good streaming services yet.
And yet with the highs, and while still considering the merits of even further steps taken from hookiness than ever before, the classiest songs within the album are outnumbered by tracks mired by distinctly flat emotional trajectories, peaks all sanded down. The performances, the playing with structure remains great, the lyrics are top notch, but there’s still this old Black Country manner of shooting for immense crests along the journey of six minute songs. It’s just not here right now, and either this now somewhat medieval-core troupe can get to sharpening their swords to get back there again, or maybe there’s different journeys to walk all together.
Maybe there’s something to mourn in the loss of the old Black Country, but I don’t know, grow up or something, no one has taken those first two albums away. Look for more than a half second, and this new form of the band has all the same longing and angst, but filtered through the perspective of three incredibly talented women, versus one incredibly talented guy. In this album however, the pooling of the viewpoints might be where we’ve found a less cohesive journey throughout, with some ground retrodden. But it’s all still them, you know, and all the kinks and impreciseness found here are a matter of simple further work, which I have no doubt will be done.
Today, and forever howlong after today, this gets a 7/10.