The last time Black Country, New Road released a studio album, in 2022, it was accompanied by a strange feeling. Their debut the previous year had reached No 4 in the UK charts, and Ants from Up There was an even greater breakthrough, the sound of the UK septet pulling confidently away from the serried ranks of sprechgesang-heavy alt-rock bands who proliferated in the late 2010s. But there was an elegiac feeling around its release: Black Country, New Road’s frontman, Isaac Wood, had announced his departure four days prior. The others had resolved to continue without him, but given how distinctive Wood’s declarative, ruminating vocals were, many thought the band’s future was uncertain at best.
That proved to be an underestimation. Instead of touring Ants from Up There, the remaining members stopped playing any of the Wood-fronted songs that had made them famous and wrote entirely new ones. “Look at what we did together,” ran the chorus of one of them, on a live album recorded at London’s Bush Hall in December 2022 – looking back with pride at the Wood era, and perhaps in disbelief at where they were going next.
