Words by Jack Foley

Black Country, New Road has been through a lot together as a group. Lead guitarist and vocalist, Isaac Wood, left the group in 2022 at the advent of their sophomore album release, “Ants From Up There,” making much of their catalogue unperformable live. BC,NR have adapted to their new lineup, and released their first record since Isaac left the band. In celebration of new beginnings, I want to revisit their first LP, “For The First Time.” Released in 2021, For The First Time is raw and experimental, but refined compared to their early single releases of some of the same tracks. This is an incredibly underrated album, I believe this record is somewhere near the pinnacle of experimental post-punk coming out of the UK. It has everything–synths, saxophones, jazz influences, tongue-in-cheek references to niche content, and men who look like they would sell Jean-Michel Basquiat clones on the TikTok Shop. 

Track 1, “Instrumental,” is just as it sounds. The track is likely one of the last things you would expect to hear coming from a post-punk record, yet, somehow it fits well. The track is tense, grandiose, and jazzy with its swung-time feel. This is a statement to set the scene for the remainder of the album. The uneasiness and tension built by this track flows perfectly into the next track, “Athens, France.”

“Athens, France” draws back the heat, but maintains a flickering flame of tension. The song opens with this guitar, drum, bass, minor key syncopated feel with a slower tempo. The mix is tight, and Isaac’s almost frantic vocals tie the atmosphere together. Just as you think the song is about to explode, the buildup of swirling saxophones and chaos cuts, resting on a single F chord. A light ostinato on drums, barely audible, joins, synth droning. A sense of clarity comes out of this, a stoic saxophone accompaniment. The song is reflective, pensive, and introspective. “It’s a one-size-fits-all hardcore cyberfetish, early noughties zine, she sells matcha shots to pay for printing costs and a PR team. She’s recently enlightened, somehow that fazes me…” depicts a critique of upper-class, posh characters who fantasize about being working class, so much so they would rather LARP than be admit their rent is financed by their trust fund. Isaac’s lyrics are incredibly clever, and his lyrical prowess facilitates a world that is easy to step into.

“Science Fair” has grown on me. Admittedly, this track was a skip for me for quite some time. The lyrics of this track paint a picture of someone who is the embodiment of the following tweet:

Anyways, despite the personal nature of the track, laden with references I likely will never understand, it managed to make me chuckle in all of the chaos of the music. “Just to think I could have left the fair with my dignity intact, and fled the stage with the world’s second-best Slint tribute act” is comically self-aware; one of the first things I ever thought of when listening to BC,NR, much like many others, was the stark similarity to the now defunct group Slint. Science fair continues, “still living with my mother, while I move from one microinfluencer to another.” I never thought I would ever hear the word “microinfluencer” in a song, to be honest. This line elicited a half-smile upon first listen; it’s a blunt, yet thoughtfully-placed nod to the experience of living in a digital era where social media allows anyone and everyone to be a “celebrity” in some way. Isaac Wood is a mastermind of capturing the aura of social anxiety and depersonalization–the science fair, the embarrassment, burning cheeks. All of this with a voice that sounds calm, yet markedly frantic and terrified at once.

Sunglasses is my favorite song off of this album. The song starts with this fuzzy guitar, and synth feeding back into itself. Something about the dissonance and ending on this huge open-D chord and going directly into a clean guitar riff just scratches this itch in my brain. The signature guitar riff comes in over the droning synths as the drums kick in, and the verse begins. Again, themes of class are rampant. “…She steams herself in marble rooms, courtesy of pigs” is rather upfront. Note, the lyric was originally “courtesy of big pharma” in the single version. Isaac gazes into the TV that only his girlfriend’s father could afford, while she spends money in excess.

The girlfriend’s mother is frail and weak, yet forced to appease her husband as she relies on his money. In this moment, Isaac knows that he, himself, is detached from this lifestyle of luxury, “and with frail hands she grips the NutriBullet, and the bite of its blades reminds me of a future that I am in no way part of,“ drives the point that as someone who is not upper class, he cannot relate to their anguish when there is such an excess of “things,” like the items that glow gold, the second living room etc. “In a wall of photographs in the downstairs second living room’s TV area, I become her father, and complain of mediocre theatre in the daytime, and ice in single-malt whiskey at night, rising skirt hems, lowering IQs and ‘things just aren’t built like they used to be,’ the absolute pinnacle of British engineering” pokes at the incessant need for the “old money” class to complain about everything “ruining” the way things were, and long for the days when tax evasion wasn’t needed and gasoline flowed like water. Isaac sees himself turning into something he cannot stand, proclaiming “I am so ignorant now, with all that I have learned.” 

The song falls apart into controlled chaos, emerging with a time change, and firm, in-your-face guitar. The listener further steps into this persona of Isaac embodying a posh, old man, and delves into a first-person perspective. “I am invincible in these sunglasses… I am looking at you with my best eyes and I wish you could tell, I wish all of my kids would stop dressing up like Richard Hell. I am locked away in a high-tech wraparound translucent blue-tinted fortress and you cannot touch me.  I am invincible in these sunglasses… there are so many roadmen on this street, and they cannot tell that I’m scared.” Here, sunglasses are used as a metaphor to depict how his girlfriend’s father views the working class. When wearing the sunglasses, you feel fear upon seeing “roadmen,” and put up a front of all-encompassing invincibility. You complain about how the younger generation doesn’t dress adequately, name-dropping Richard Hell, the bassist of the early punk outfit Television. Still, despite the blatant truth that the world has changed, you refuse to adapt, and clutch your pearls, hiding in your ivory tower.

Enough about Sunglasses, I could write a thesis on this song at this point.

Next on For The First Time is “Track X.” This song takes a different turn sonically. It’s soft and warm, with subtle violin, saxophone, and the same light guitar finger-picking reverberating between your ears. Lyrically, the track focuses on the vague concept of hope. Isaac details his contemplation of suicide, standing on the 18th floor of a building, drunk, thinking about jumping, all the while he recounts his unfinished business, such as proving his father wrong, and how those close to him would react to the grizzly sight. He decides to leave things open ended, the chorus stating “I guess, in some way-” this line acts like an unfinished interjection, indicating that there’s something worth living for, even if it means struggling for it. The title “Track X” itself indicates something unfinished, a placeholder to be revisited at another time.  It alludes to the outcome of the song, wherein he has left the his fate open-ended, unfinished.

The final track on For The First Time is “Opus.” This song comes in with a somber set of duetting saxophones, building up into a syncopated minor key piece with polyrhythmic components. The excitement quickly dies down into the verse, but eventually picks back up with a fury of arpeggiating saxophones dueling for your attention. This song is a great example of the whiplash you can experience listening to Black Country, New Road.  To be honest, I have never been an avid listener of “Opus,” but I can appreciate it for what it is. 

The group is not afraid of experimentation, and I am excited to hear where their music will go next with this latest album. Black Country, New Road is resilient, and their ability to persevere is certainly indicative of their future success.