Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There

LOVE IS A SELF-MADE THING

We sit in awe at the rare commodity. A piece of art that paralyzes with grandiose themes and unflinching ambition. Ants From Up There is the once-in-a-decade piece. Consummate and studious, affecting and poignant. A paradigm to mark a new generation of lost adolescents, some of which - as we found out with the sudden departure of lead singer Issac Wood - can be found within Black Country, New Road itself. The parallels to Arcade Fire's Funeral are obvious. Outside of the music - which itself contains the same big band histrionics rife with chamber flourishes - Wood and company find themselves at life's impervious crossroads. Interestingly enough, where Funeral concerned itself with death, Ants From Up There seizes the magnitude of life. Distraught tendencies waver not from physical loss - as in familial bodies or suburbia youth - but perceived ones. Fear of intimacy conflate with stewing anxieties bolstered by society's cold shoulder. Undoubtedly exacerbated by 2020's quarantine, which held communal experiences hostage.

Wood's lyrics are peppered with tender relations that lean more towards fantasy than reality, like in 'Bread Song' or 'Basketball Shoes,' where idyllic late nights of repose uncover a deeper connection with one's sentimental side. I mean, in what other situation would one find meaning in bread crumbs? On the flip side, whether overtly or subconsciously, in spite of these unsoiled times of yore and beauty unraveling in the production, Wood himself can't seem to shake modernity. For The First Time ran rampant with hip one-liners providing topical references or meta humor, and the same rings true here, even if the integration isn't as blunt. Billie Eilish is name-dropped on numerous occasions as a recurring image of Wood's fantasy girl, while 'The Place Where He Inserted The Blade' finds the singer relying on YouTube videos for his meal preparation. These moments spark paradoxes with the band's classically-trained maturity, providing a staple that'll soon go unappreciated when Wood - and his penchant for scrutinizing the mundane - no longer coexist. Even his effete use of "darling" throughout the album carries with it the feeling of an old soul trapped in a young body. The impact of his eventual absence remains to be seen, but I feel as though it's stronger than many are anticipating.

However, the real calling card of Black Country, New Road's epic lies in the sound. 'Track X' off For The First Time hinted at such a direction, as did the early performances of 'Bread Song' and the transcendental tentpole of 'Basketball Shoes,' but nothing could've prepared one for this salient leap. There's a clarity in chrysalis, a branch extending out from the source in beautiful, interwoven fractals. Each song adheres to this approach, while also separating themselves distinctly. 'Chaos Space Marine' is punchy and instantaneous, a winning go-getter with inspirited vigor, while 'Bread Song,' for instance, moves tenuously through weighted steps and a heavy heart pulled down by gravity. 'Haldern' does the same, but with less grace and tenderness, causing it to be a damp outlier that pales around everything that encircles it. Including the gorgeous and galvanized 'Good Will Hunting,' a homebound epic that thrives in unification. Background singers carry Wood as the headstrong drums courtesy of Charlie Wayne set the singer's weary sights on a light at the end of the tunnel. And though there's far much more to discuss with 'Snow Globes' - the Post-Rock dirge that follows the dual-playing, free-flow mannerisms of The Velvet Underground's 'Heroin' - I'll leave the commentary at this: That is Wayne's song. The performance unparalleled.

There is one minor criticism I have with Black Country, New Road's approach to composition though, and that's an over-reliance on complexity. Natural, given the expansive talents of the band and their potential for tripping over one another. It occurs in small moments, like at 2:21 of 'Chaos Space Marine' or 2:54 of 'Good Will Hunting,' where transitions enter abruptly with a comparative lack of grace. But even grandiose ideas, found on 'Snow Globes' and 'Basketball Shoes,' suffer a tad from prying eyes making inquisitions over idiosyncrasies. The former's bland and repetitive guitar build falls into pretension, thankfully offset by the "second song" running rampant in the second half, while the latter's numerous restarts cause needless delays as an excuse to bridge ever-disparate gaps in tone and pace. 'Basketball Shoes' is a mess, and perhaps that's by design.

However, none of this truly matters because the pros significantly outweigh the cons of the monumental closer. 'Basketball Shoes' is the band's masterpiece, a clarion call for everything they stand for. And in spite of the occasional clunkiness, or the further ridding of Wood's juvenile lyrics (which, to be honest, fairs much better here than on 'Sunglasses'), the climax to 'Basketball Shoes,' and therefore Ants From Up There, and therefore this era of BCNR, is dastardly, cathartic bliss. A moment of complete release, shedding gravity's imposing weight in order to ascend beyond the human condition. And it's not even the best song.

That goes to 'The Place Where He Inserted The Blade,' which nears complete and total Indie Rock perfection. Every moment, every ounce of panic and hope, agitation and patience, coalesces in succinct measures, bound and built through British engineering to return to a place of pure, natural essence. The careful verses, traipsing bridge, and utterly-masterful chorus unite in sublimity, culminating in classic, coda absolution. Wood's 100% commitment, matched by each and every member, works wonders in invigorating, motivating, and proving that honest passion can achieve the unthinkable. And for the sake of curtailing platitudes and pontification, we'll leave the entirety of Ants From Up There at that. We are nothing but specks on this rock. Specks that can achieve this.