Live Diaries: Black Country, New Road // Athens, Dec 2023
A spirit which embraces independence under the collective, appears to be the balm that helped BC,NR pave a post-Wood path, without so much as a scar marking the sincerity of their output.
“References, references, references,” and historical context this and that, and post-punk revival revival, and those British and Irish bands that all sound the same; yes, you might’ve heard of black midi, yes, the prog rock elements fuck, or whatever — this is a Music Publication, by the way. I’ve never been that crazy about the guitars, or any of their Venn diagrams, as fascinating as I find the mansplainability of it all, — that is the sad truth, I can’t believe I can’t #girlreview my way out of this — and the problem is this reviewing thing takes its Knowing pretty seriously. It’s work crafted on the Knowledge Axis: work that clings to the ages old, heavy metal (ha) like a magnet, has to wrap around the hard fact, and cold, ubiquitous consensus for its validity. Nine times out of ten, it shapes its connections like this; What can be seen roaming around, scraping at the metal? Does it lend itself well to being heated past melting point, and re-crystallizing, as an extension to the canon — generating room for another seat at the table? Is it just fated to disappear?
And when everything has been melting, and piling up, and burning together for eons, where do you go, exactly?
Knowing was felt to be the mystical entity haunting the narrating projection of, then, frontman Isaac Wood on Black Country, New Road’s debut For the first time (2021): the “cursed poet” persona, bending under the existential weight imposed by a realization of his own unremarkability, yet not crushed by it. On the contrary, drawing on its nihilism to fuel the panicked running he was “born” to do — despite, yes, but more likely because of that precise awareness: that this is a place where nothing grows anymore, where poets go to die. Scorched land — black country: the post, post, post everything.
Cue the sax.
What I wrote down in my notes, after leaving the Floyd live venue on December 9, went something like…
“[...] and if Knowledge had been a glass wall, the six remaining members of BC,NR may have pierced a hole right through, without even realizing it.”
After Wood’s departure from the band for mental health reasons, just a couple of days before the release of their highly acclaimed, sophomore LP Ants From Up There (2022), Tyler Hyde, Lewis Evans, May Kershaw, Georgia Ellery, Luke Mark, and Charlie Wayne sat down to write and compose entirely new material, to perform at lined up BC,NR shows — the group’s first ever tour, with Covid restrictions eventually lifted. The final product came to be Live at Bush Hall (2023): what began as an unconventional concert documentary film, shot — exactly a year ago as of the time I’m writing this — over three nights at Bush Hall in London where the band staged three fake plays varying in themes, plots, and costuming, and ended up transcending its YouTube unveiling, with the recording officially released as a live album under their name, later in March.
From post-punk experimentalists to dinner theater act, BC,NR abandoned the definitive sprechgesang for customary melodic singing and tighter-than-ever choruses, and with it, the distanced coolness of abstract narrative for heart-on-sleeve earnestness and structured storytelling. Reasonably, that is an energy shift which can be attributed to the three new characters sharing the burden of front person duty by stepping up to the mic in turns, throughout this project — regardless of pianist Kershaw’s moments offering far more enigmatic approaches than bassist Hyde’s disarmingly diaristic pieces, or saxophonist Evans’ romantic serenades, thus tying a delicate thread to the band’s previously established public perception. With the heavy-lifting position spread thinner, the group admits to having their balance strengthened as far as contribution goes, while (intentionally or not) avoiding any sort of homogeneity in themes, or delivery. After all, it is only the very misconception that a front person’s inner world tends to accurately represent collective band sentiment, which would render the echo from this shattering of the glass, or pivot in direction, deafening for some. If, for Wood, Knowledge had stood as a transparent, mental cage influencing the definition of the initial BC,NR worldview, for — at least some of — his bandmates, it seemed to be but thin air.
I found it quite striking, coming across Anthony Fantano’s 2021 interview with Hyde and Evans a few months ago, how the straightforwardness of Hyde’s answer to whether the pressure of existing in certain spaces illustrated on their debut record was a reality for the group, warranted no further nitpicking of BC,NR’s position amid the post-punk revival 2x — not my words! — climate. She confirms that the question specifically concerns Wood’s lyricism, before disclosing:
Ιsaac has a very different way of looking at the world, to all of us. Ηe articulates things in a way that we couldn’t, and maybe we don’t even experience it like that. Ι don't feel like Ι personally relate to a lot of what he says in the lyrics. [...] Ι personally wasn’t responsible for [the lyrics], and Ι’m not connected to them. Τhey exist as a separate entity from the music.
Later in the interview, Evans goes on to mention he isn’t a huge rock fan himself — having been taught klezmer from a young age, its unadulteratedly fun sensibility clings to his improvisation, shaping his sole say over guitar music. And need it be less simple, really? The decisive focus on individual duty among team members might as well be the force that naturally assembles BC,NR’s identity (beyond picked apart influences); According to Hyde, the outcome we know as the BC,NR sound would be the only possible solution to combining every single one of their vastly different approaches to music, in terms of style and taste, into the finite melting pot of their catalog. Compromise on one hand, space kept open on the other, that spirit which allows and embraces independence under the unit, appears to be the balm that helped the act pave a post-Wood path, without so much as a scar marking the sincerity of their output.
Performing their live album top to bottom, with the exception of the Evans-voiced “The Wrong Trousers” and a couple of off-the-record additions in-between, BC,NR gifted Athens an evening to remember on their last show of the year, as well as the Live at Bush Hall era. The satisfactory turnout provided a loud and clear, soothing response to the band’s uncertainty up until minutes before they stepped onstage, regarding whether anyone would actually show up to the gig — as endearingly revealed by drummer Wayne during introductions, alongside members’ exclamations about being in Greece, and positive remarks on stuffed tomatoes and Mythos beer.
The overall biggest surprise for myself, nonetheless, came in the form of unexpectedly few phone sightings amid what looked like a majority Gen Z-populated room. A couple of quick glances around during heavy hitters — topped with overhearing conversations recalling special moments and referring to the musicians by first name while in queue for the cloakroom — would be enough to suggest that you were surrounded by music nerds, in itself a confession to a sense of intimacy at the show, which seems to be less and less present in live music nowadays. Then again, it’s not like BC,NR strikes one as an influencer’s favorite band, by any means.
Choosing a spot to the left of the venue, in service of witnessing Kershaw’s Björkian lead vocal takeovers in all of their mystifying glory, had proven infallible by the time of “Turbines/Pigs:” arguably the highlight of the evening, where four out of the band’s six, leaving their posts, gathered to one side of the stage, in order to make space for the unfolding of the keyboardist’s gut-wrenching tale of a self-pitying witch turned metaphorical superhero. Only accompanied by gentle violin during its lullaby-esque first half, the third-to-last track of BC,NR’s set gives way to a chill-inducing full-band crescendo in its final three minutes, instruments stacking on top of one another in tense arpeggios, to reach a climax so frenetic it’s a miracle that Wayne’s drum kit makes it out whole, by the end (judging from cloakroom queue comments, attendees with a clearer view of his corner must’ve spotted a cymbal actually breaking off, or getting pretty damn near). It’s a sequence which, experienced in real life, more than justifies the 30-second applause that closes out its official recording, if not promptly earns and recreates it with even greater fervor.
Despite touring substitute Nina Lim’s performance not lacking in any aspect, somewhere around this part, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to my prior wish of being granted the chance to see Ellery play with BC,NR, based on the separate affinity I have developed for Jockstrap in the past year alone. The fleeting discussion I had with friends on the way to the metro station, on the topic of the musician’s persona being split between strict violin duty in one project, and popstar sensibility as songwriting and vocal half (to Taylor Skye’s production half) in the other, brought to mind a question about her lead vocal absence from Live at Bush Hall. Of course, with the band’s first album as a sextet being a thoroughly performance-oriented endeavor, that predicament would involve Ellery’s solos having to be either substituted for, or scrapped altogether for shows she wouldn’t be able to make throughout the touring season. Perhaps, it is as plain as that. Perhaps, there are bigger implications to be hinted at, if we’d like to dig deeper into the logistics of the violinist and futurepop messenger’s conflating identities which, with both acts equally taking off in their respective niches, will be interesting to see continue to dance around each other in the years to come.
While acquiring more and more live music experience over the years, I find myself becoming profoundly aware of its capacity to challenge pre-existing perspectives on the sonic material performed. Beyond record-to-stage translation technicalities, and the music’s subsequent attachment to powerful memories, it’d be difficult not to notice — and increasingly value — the inherent distance from passive, academic-leaning viewpoints in music criticism that the mere act of participatory, shared witnessing fosters. There is a sense of realization, almost equivalent to a world opening up, that manifests in the grounding force of existing in a space that music fills, as generated straight from its source: one that, even when it comes to some of the most complicated instances of musicianship in the wider landscape, — default-set to withstand piles and piles of analytical texts in their name — is enough to convey a basic, instinctual and universal truth about personal connections to music that live not only in the brain, but the blood.
Live at Bush Hall, in its empirical creative nature, does not demand per se, but certainly welcomes an empirical information of opinion. After all, plays can’t exist outside of the theater; outside of their beginning, middle, and end.
Three acts drive the live record’s essence home.
Signaling that the stage has been set, arrives the crowd-spanning unison of “Look at what we did together / BC,NR, friends forever,” collaged on cardboard signs raised among the audience, and sung back at the group to the celebratory tune of explosive opener “Up Song.” The team anthem’s reprise, in parallel, drops the show’s curtain: an epilogue which features Hyde reiterating the self-reflective first verse (“Have you come out half the woman you were before? / Or twice the person you ever dreamed you could be?”) sans chorus, in a jazzy, introverted, and much less triumphant rendition that evokes the finality of a musical theater main character’s coda, yet not the resolution.
Impeccably placed, though, whether by accident or design (titles may suggest the latter), right at the heart of the record, lies a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it statement. Behind its misleading name, “Laughing Song,” also voiced by Hyde, cradles a story about letting “the best person [you] know” — and the one who made you laugh the most — walk away. At the peak of her self-directed frustration, and enveloped by the band’s chaotic instrumental eruption, the singer breaks into a chant entirely consisting of song titles taken from the album; “Laughing, I Won’t Always Love You / Trousers, Turbines, Up Song, Dancers,” is half an homage to Wood, referencing his signature habit of repeating song titles throughout projects, and half a Beatles-style writing device in service of lyrical cohesion.
It just so happens that the line’s cadence is simultaneously identical to that of “Up Song”’s hook. And perhaps, that marks another subtle reprise: a montage, or rather snapshot, of the tangible achievement itself, within the frame of unapologetic celebration and pride. A nod to the past, alongside the acknowledgement of a present that isn’t beholden to it.
What would this stand for, if not a New Road?