#towards the end of the song where the brass is louder than the lyrics themselves who did this to you!!!!!!!!!

[theinfinitedivides]

no but why are the only good songs in Fighter's OST the three pre-release singles they put out + 3/4ths of the mixing on Mitti 😭😭😭😭 Vishal-Shekhar i trusted you and you failed me

[radramblog]

Album Discussion: For the First Time

I was tossing up whether or not I wanted to keep going on the Radiohead train, considering there are still a huge pile of B-sides to go through. However seeing as there are, well, a lot of those, and I’d feel like I’d want to cover all of them to do it justice, we’re going to take a little break from that for now.

Instead, we’re going to cover something else that I’m probably not qualified for.

Black Country, New Road is one of those bands that apparently all the modern prog nerds are kind of frothing over, and for good reason- their first LP, For the First Time, is genuinely an excellent piece of music, and they have connections to black midi (decapitalization intentional) who I’ve not listened to but are also apparently quite good. It’s a challenging album in more ways than one, which is why I feel a little trepidatious trying to challenge it- so if you’re a big fan of the record, and think I’m not giving it the credit it deserves somehow, please be gentle.

With that said, A. I don’t think any of my “usual” readerbase is going to have heard of or listened to this album, and I’d like to change that, and B. I think it’s really good so I’m not really deviating from tradition here.

For the First Time is a crisp 6 songs long. But the shortest of those songs is almost 5 minutes, and the longest is almost 10, so we’re still going to be here for a while.

The first track is an instrumental, which is titled Instrumental. As with many a lyricless introduction, it serves to introduce what the album is going to sound like- a complex percussion line, building layers of guitars, and jazzy brass instrumentation. But, seeing as it’s 5 and a half minutes long, it’s definitely also its own song worthy of separate consideration.

Instrumental spends a very long time building up. Crescendo is its word, four minutes of clean instrumentation and layers before a climax that’s tense, almost panicked, many of the instruments blending together in the haze as the brass takes over the melody. It does eventually coalesce into a dramatic finale, as suddenly the guitars (I think one of them is a violin actually) and brass are all playing the same three-note progression, a surprising unity after the organised chaos that is the rest of the track.

I feel like this song is a litmus test for the rest of the album. If you like this track, if you like the tones of the different instruments, the styles being played, then you’re going to like the album as a whole- though I suppose you can’t truly tell until the vocals get introduced one track later.

From the lovely mess of the previous track, the considerably more standard opening of Athens, France is a bit of a comfort, though said opening does have this guitar tone that I utterly adore. This is also, however, where we get into the lyrics of this album, and they’re a somewhat complicated subject.

A couple tracks on this album were singles released long before its debut, and my understanding is that Athens, France is one of them. With this delay came reworkings of many lyrics, heavily changing themes and implications behind the songs themselves, which is directly referenced in Athens, France’s second line.

The other thing is that the lyrics on this album are intensely personal, and this one’s no exception. Considering how utterly stark some of them are, and the clear anxiety surrounding their writer, Isaac Wood, it’s not surprising that some of them would end up changing, as he might regret putting that much out there, or be ashamed of how people pick songs apart for meaning nowadays. I don’t really want to be that guy, seeing as the lyrics were changed for a reason, but I only know the difference for the fourth track, and I do want to discuss that because it mostly just hammers the point in.

Anyway.

Athens, France is one of the album’s quieter tracks, spending a long time in this very low mood, carried by the lyricism that somehow manages to be quite literal and word-salady at the same time. The track has builds, but the air is let out of them relatively quick every time, with this just depressed sort of tone. The guitars aren’t as layered, the brass is quieter, you get the idea. For that reason, it’s one of my less liked songs on the album- not because I don’t think it’s good, but because that’s generally not what I’m looking for when it comes to proggy/experimental music.

We move on now to Science Fair, a track that starts on this almost menacing percussion that doesn’t let up throughout the whole song. It stays on this disquieting instrumentation for such a long while, as the lyrics make the song sound like a mental breakdown in progress, as the guitar gets louder and more distorted, as the brass comes in and just starts losing its mind getting faster and faster and faster and it sounds almost like a horror soundtrack and-

Then there’s, uh, a synth? The track gives you this chance to breathe as the second verse comes in, and it’s a much needed one. Especially as the same effect is effectively happening in said verse, but with additional elements added in, music swelling to this insane peak as Isaac is flat-out yelling. The climax of the track is just this incredible, cathartic release, one that is as harrowing as it is satisfying. The tenseness from the rest of the track is blown through, bubbling over as the lyrics have completed their mental breakdown and our perspective character is getting the fuck out of dodge.

I worry that my commentary on these songs is simultaneously too objective and too literal. This is not something I’m really good at, I’m not sure how to get my opinions in here, especially when it’s a track like this- one that on paper sounds kind of upsetting, but is genuinely really cool and I like it a lot. There’s someone in the youtube comments for the music video comparing this track to the Tunnel Boat Ride from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and I find it quite hard to disagree with them.

Anxiety in music represented this way is not something that’s for everyone. I think the best comparison here is to You Won’t Get What You Want, an album I’ve [discussed previously], and found similarly hard to convey. These songs are patently excellent, and I love them, and they’re a form of music I think needs to exist, but considering their nature and how intense they can end up, I totally understand not wanting to hear it. They’re a lot, both sonically and emotionally, and that’s an easy turn-off for people.

Track 4 is Sunglasses, the one I know the difference between album and single the best (as in, I know it at all). The instrumental of the single version is rougher, and the intro’s about a minute shorter (not that that tends to make a difference in a track this long), but the album version’s lyrics are significantly toned down.

I’m going to get this out of the way, in part because this is actually my favourite song on this album. The lyrics on this are still incredibly revealing, even as “nerfed” as they are- the song is very much about feeling protected, comfortable even, behind a pair of sunglasses, hiding his gaze as he’s attempting to escape his relationship with a rich girl, one that was set up in Athens, France and Science Fair. The bit that is less clear with the rewrite is the abusive nature of the relationship- the line “leave your Sertraline in the cabinet” is kind of left abandoned as a result. I’ll let you seek that version out if you want the gory details, I suppose.

Sunglasses is pretty clearly divided into two sections. The first is the very calm, almost tragic tale of getting lost in this relationship as it falls apart, with these little lines that sound almost beautiful behind all the angst and pain- like reminiscing about what could be. This section is driven away by the intensifying instrumentation, with the beat eventually slowing to a crawl and falling apart completely and eventually neatly dividing the track.

The second section is the most intense portion of the entire album, I think. The lyrics are barely controlled panic at best, the instrumentation slowly building once again towards this explosive verse. The vocal performance for this part of the song shows such an utter emotional rawness that it’s hard not to get mesmerised by its power, even as the lyrics don’t make a huge amount of sense at first. Seriously, hearing “Leave Kanye out of this!” and realising how much it sounds like an actual argument somebody was having transplanted directly into lyrics was kind of a trip.

I don’t know how to explain it, but I just love this track. There’s so much pure energy and emotion laden into it, the two sides of this relationship crumbling down, the nostalgia and frustration and the anger and anxiety. It’s a lot, but its great.

The fifth song is Track X, possibly the softest song on the album. There’s a current of tension carried by the violin in the background, though the chill guitar and almost bubbly saxophone keeps the mood relatively lighter. It’s more relaxing, it’s got background vocals going oooooooh, it feels much looser.

As a result, I don’t have as much to say about it. I think this track is much easier listening than anything else the album has to offer, which is reflected in its much higher spotify listen count, but it means I have less room for it in my heart. When I’m listening to an album like this, I really want to be in to it, to feel it- and it’s kinda harder to do that with this sort of song.

The final track is the similarly mysteriously named Opus, the track with perhaps the most Prog Energy going into it. There’s fast looping guitar lines, elements coming and going, and some serious time signature shifts. This is the track that’s most like, say, a Thank You Scientist track- wait have I not talked about those guys on this blog yet? How the fuck.

Opus is a mix of fast, chaotic instrumental sections and extremely deliberate and dreary lyric parts. Lyrically, it’s the closest thing to catharsis the album gives- an acknowledgement that it’s all over, tinged with the regret of writing about these emotions in the sudden hit songs- after all, that means he’s having to relive them on stage every single time.

The catharsis does somewhat carry over to the instrumental, I feel. The drawn out, staircase-like brass feels like the album coming to its final rest. Of course, there’s a bridge in the way of that actually happening. The wailing and repetition of the final lines feels like this breakdown finally ending, the whole thing coming to a frustrating close. The things this album is about don’t fade so quickly, as the final notes of the song imply- it’s still there, softly creeping, waiting to build up and explode again, when you least expect it.

Uhh that’s everything I guess. Album’s great. I’m sure I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before by a smarter person, but For the First Time is an incredible piece of work for such a new group to put together, let alone the sheer weight of its emotion. I frankly don’t know how they could follow this up, because nobody makes this kind of album twice. Even if you somehow can bring this kind of power and pain to bear a second time, there’s absolutely no universe where that’s a healthy thing for you to do.

So I’m excited to see where Black Country, New Road goes from here. I can only hope it’s as good, but anything remotely approaching this level of quality would still be a successful work, in my opinion. It is ultimately still a niche within a niche, but it’s managed to catch enough critical acclaim to grow beyond that, so maybe…just maybe.

God okay next time I should talk about a lighter album. 9 Radiohead albums and then this? I should find something happier to talk about next week.