A swirling breakdown against conventionality.
Breakthrough of certain acts can be quite interesting, sometimes it’s the sheer buildup of following that has been going through for years, or perhaps it’s a promotional push with the help of music labels, but there are cases where acts broke through just because of their sheer skill and prowess that they became instant or at least anticipated projects that are bound to make something extremely great.
Black midi is one of those acts, where they got their anticipated hype through their performances on KEXP and SXSW, put out an album that garnered acclaim, which I do agree as that debut has some of the pummeling sounds, vocals, and lyrics that are executed and performed extremely well. It’s to the point that Black midi themselves made some influences towards future acts that also pushes the post-punk genre, Squid and Black Country New Road come to mind.
So 2 years later, Black Midi finally put out their sophomore album that steps into a large leap in style, from Post-punk to Avant-prog. While the chaos is still retained here, Black midi made these compositions more free-flowing and polished in contrast with the smudged and improvised style of their debut, but that still doesn’t mean it’s bad. There is also quite a balancing act with their instrumentation as well where-in some of the tracks are acoustic-focused while other tracks are of Black midi’s natural sonic wheelhouse, where the instruments flutter and spiral into cacophony, before sifting through a quiet but still unstable groove just before it reels back into a jagged frenzy. Songs like ‘John L’ with its stifling melodic patterns, the lingering and tense progressions of ‘Slow’, the soft melodies of ‘Chondromalacia Patella’ that lunges its tensity at the end, the ballad-like tones of ‘Marlene Dietrich’, and the grand, theatrical closer of ‘Ascending Forth’ show this balancing act executed quite well.
But there are some songs that felt slapdash or didn’t hit as hard as the other tracks. ‘Diamond Stuff’ has some wondrous twinkles on the guitar but it goes a bit way too long for the accompaniment to enter in fleeting fashion, ‘Dethroned’ started pretty promising before the cluttered guitar rhythms go in and diminishing the groove of the song, ‘Hogwash and Backwash’ felt oddly out of the place with the clattering percussion even if it is a pretty short song, and as much as I did like ‘Chondromalacia Patella’, it didn’t need to end with a whimpering farty synth.
Then towards the content… Well here’s the thing, given the rather deadpan and repressed delivery that’s all over the album, it seems that it’s an intentional tone to pair with the lingering and chaotic progressions, but also to the poetry being told as well. In general, Black midi is speaking towards unconventionality, breaking away from the perceived expectations of the audience that might end up being a painful disaster, criticizing them, and dethroning them from the standards of the audience that have looked upon their sound with high hopes. It also speaks of other details as well, where there’s this fear of said disaster that they might wait for time to slip by to end them, and others to discover their waning and unfulfilled corpse and their dream to break away from conventionality. But by the end of the album, they’re not willing to let that fear keep them from breaking through, and will push through to ruin that conventionality, even if they know it will put them in a dire situation that they’re willing to accept.
It’s an album that doesn’t like conventionality, and it’s yet another strong album from Black midi and shows just how they’re willing to change sounds with refreshing and palpitating fashion.
Favorite Tracks: Slow, John L, Ascending Forth, Chondromalacia Patella, Marlene Dietrich
Least Favorite Track: Dethroned