Album Review: Black Country, New Road - Forever Howlong

The feeling of unsureness bleeds into the sound and theme of ‘Forever Howlong’, a sentiment that digs deeper into whether or not it sticks the landing. A swing towards Twee and Progressive Pop that Black Country, New Road had certainly stuck with grace, yet unfortunately, ends up being disappointingly empty.

It’s quite a common occurrence for bands to take a different approach to their musical scope when their lineups started changing over time, even if that could bring worry to people who are looking for the past soundscape that the band can approach extremely well. While accepting those new changes may vary - though might not exactly end well when the band’s next project ends up lackluster, or at the very least divisive for the entire fanbase - it is still worth considering giving their willingness to take distinct sonic swings a chance, especially if the result actually ends up becoming a stunner and puts more intrigue to what they can do next in the future. With that in mind, this overall puts Black Country, New Road in an interesting light after the departure of Isaac Wood and their curiosity to practice performing and writing their own songs post-Ants From Up There, eventually hearing a direction to pull their prog theatricality with a more whimsical touch, something that would eventually follow through with the first album of this next incarnation of the band, ‘Forever Howlong’.

‘Forever Howlong’ is a record where the band’s usual theatrics are painted with a friendlier, brighter tonality. Glossing over their progressive edges with a delicate yet pulsating grace that focuses on giving May Kershaw, Georgia Ellery, and Tyler Hyde’s vocal leads the space they need to allow the melodic sweetness to be emphasized. It’s a direction that’s definitely listenable and comfortable, especially as James Ford handles the production that gives these pristine tunes a pulpy and flittering texture to the horns, violins, drums, keys, and guitars, yet the result of all of this doesn’t give them much spark to embark on. Perhaps one of the reasons why is mostly due to the small-scale approach, where constructing a lot of airy melodies with too much emphasis on the pristine tones means that so much of the melodic compositions tend to be so fleeting that it affects so much of their momentum. Whether that may be the swells to the crescendos of ‘Big Spin’ and ‘Socks’, or the empty space that surrounds ‘Forever Howlong’, it can’t be helped but feel how the quaintness being inputted in these songs can become its double-edged sword. Amplifying the twee stories on display, but also leaving so much of the musicality sounding empty and neutered than it should be.

That twee aspect does unfortunately fall short of the band’s own songwriting on this record. An exploration of various tales where the connection to it all is the uncertainty of the trust being brought forward, with most of them treating it with a shaky reminder of how said trust can carry the perspectives of these characters into a tragic end or a fickle, yet strained sense of resilience and change. It’s a constant cycle that enhances life itself, with the overall writing providing empathy to these character’s lives. A sentiment that works at its best when the small-scaled twee framing leans on bringing more stark emotionality to these stories, like the sudden betrayal of ‘Two Horses’ that sparks with the galloping crescendo on the back half of the song, the self-reflection of a knight that sheds his armor from the sense of guilt of not protecting the people he loves on ‘For The Cold Country’ that’s accompanied with these gleaming pastoral beauty on the melodies, the fear of being bullied in school that the titular character achingly hides on ‘Mary’ with the solid gentle acoustics and vocal harmonies, and the rather slice of life approach of accepting fear in life that could still bear something hopeful on ‘Goodbye (Don’t Tell Me)’ with the blossoming melodic touches that swells with a bright charm worth needed for the record.

But those, unfortunately, are the distinctly cutting moments amidst the rest of the stories that lean on more constrained, lilting details that just don’t have that same sense of shambling edge to their writing. Eventually ending up way too pastoral and affable for its own good. Yet, when they do try to get out of that small-scaled framing, that’s where their attempts at empathizing start to crush at the seams. While the observation of the unsatisfying effects of privilege on ‘Happy Birthday’ is somehow tolerable with the poetry leaning on the childlike wonder that does make it sound like a cautionary tale, their observation towards the delirious woman on ‘Nancy Tries to Take the Night’ is not. With its sharp turn towards a cynical tone where she gets called a whore, ends up pregnant, loses the baby, and the gradual depression leading her to end her life is a shocking moment where the twee presentation not only makes the empathetic nature just dissipate quite a lot, but it can’t help but puts a murky mess that affects all of the whimsicality as a result.

All of this puts ‘Forever Howlong’ in such an exasperating place, wherein there is still talent with how the band cobbles together all of these pretty theatrical soundscapes, yet the overall form of what they have put together on display just doesn’t stir a lot of captivation within the compositions, production, and writing. A shift to lead themselves into progressive pop with a lot of twee markings, where they manage to be coherent in sounding small-scaled that somehow tries so hard to grasp some meaningful faith amidst life’s tragic experiences, yet the sound just comes off as empty and the emotionality comes more inquisitive rather than gripping. Eventually coming out with an extremely disappointing output despite all of the posh and whimsical stylings being knit together. The shaky feeling that they are going through won’t last forever, hopefully coming out of that experience with the gleaming faith that will be embraced for time everlasting.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘Two Horses’, ‘Mary’, ‘For The Cold Country’, ‘Goodbye (Don’t Tell Me)’

Least Favorite Track: ‘Nancy Tries To Take The Night’, ‘Forever Howlong’