ALBUM REVIEW: Live at Bush Hall

Live at Bush Hall - Black Country, New Road

And so it goes, Black Country, New Road could have lost it all right when they were at the cusp of their breakthrough. In 2022, four days before the release of their second studio album, Ants from Up There, frontman Isaac Wood left the band, citing mental health reasons and opting for a quiet life instead of stardom. The album went on to reach unprecedented heights for the band. They received universal acclaim from critics, landed on numerous end-of-year lists, cemented an incredibly loyal following, and became stalwarts of a new scene of British indie rock rooted in avant-garde instrumentation and experimental post-punk. In the wake of a standing ovation, Wood simply walked away, leaving the band with the impending question of what to do next.

We know that for every Pink Floyd, Joy Division, or Fleetwood Mac, there is a Black Sabbath, The Doors, or Alice in Chains. That is, for every band that survived the loss of a founding member—and perhaps emerged stronger and more successful with a new sound—there are many more that couldn't quite rebound and never reached their peak again. Black Country, New Road find themselves at this exact crossroads. However, if the work they’ve done in the past year, which has culminated in the album Live at Bush Hall, is any indicator, BCNR is onto something good. 

Out of respect for Wood, the band vowed to not play any songs from their first two albums after his departure. By virtue of their talented lineup, the remaining members immediately went to the drawing board, and with a blank slate, ambition abounded. Less than four months after Wood left, the band hit the road touring England, the US, and a dense global festival circuit that included Fuji Rock, Primavera Sound, and Levitation with entirely new, unrecorded material. 

For five months they played unfamiliar music to fans who had been won over by songs written by a guy no longer in the band, a notably daunting task to any musician. But overall, the reception was warm. The aforementioned fan base flocked to Youtube channels and internet boards with iPhone videos of these new songs. By the end of the tour, fans began singing along to songs that had yet to be released by legitimate means. 

Last month, fans graduated from iPhone videos to a proper concert film of their three nights at Bush Hall in London. The precise audio engineering was surely an evolution from the DIY recordings fans had grown accustomed to, but more importantly, with the concert film and live album the new songs are finally able to be appreciated as a formal new era for the band. 

In this rebirth, BCNR has struck a nice balance in retaining what initially drew fans to their sound while giving other talent a bigger role in the production. The rich orchestration, delicate maximalism, and distinctly contemporary sound remain, but the songwriting differs and the tone is a bit more joyful. Instead of Wood’s iconic tongue-in-cheek lines such as “I have this dream about Charli XCX/Finding her way to me on a train/From the London Eye to the Big Ben” or “I'm more than adequate/Leave Kanye out of this,” we are greeted cheekier refrains such as “Look at what we did together, BCNR friends forever,” a line which has already become a rallying cry for their fanbase. 

In their past, Wood’s sharp, culturally relevant quips perhaps provoked feelings of distress and the image of a young man distraught with the world around him, struggling to make sensible meaning out of this chaos. In the face of the pandemic, a resurging wave of a life online and internet culture, the general malaise of teenagers becoming adults, and political uncertainty, the version of BCNR led by Wood was one of the most prominent Gen-Z groups to understand and write about all this in such a way that resonated with young people. That is by sounding ironic yet so on the nose that it comes off as intelligent. 

Wood’s insights were so unique, and his voice so potent in the songwriting, it’s inevitable that things would be different in his departure. In the new BCNR, however, the band appears more democratic and unified, because after all tragedy does lead to intensified bonding. As such, the songs on Live at Bush Hall seem more comforting than alienating. In “Up Song,” they describe the financial and emotional struggles the band has faced but state that “All these things will remain invisible to the world / And you wish you could be held / A silent embrace in the arms of another,” Likewise, “The Boy '' tells a fairytale-like story of a robin that searches for a mole to fix his wing, sending simple to support others if you can. 

On top of this, in the concert film that accompanied the Bush Hall album BCNR organized the evening as a fake prom night. Complete with costumes and stage props in line with a public school budget they performed it to a generation of kids who likely had their prom taken away from them and probably spent their graduation in their living room. Regardless of the lineup shift, BCNR retains its cachet. It understands its audience, speaks directly to them, and they succeed because its members truly understand each other. Though not perfect, Live at Bush Hall is a refined work that came out of a rather tumultuous period. Evidence of a group of people stuck together is the ultimate ode to friendship. Proving that even if the world sucks, your friends will still have your back

- Dina Pasha aka dj dean
-RIYL: Suicide, black midi, Radiohead, Bauhaus