9.0
Avg Score
29
Opinions
#35
All Time
19
Tracks
“Things rarely associated with fun: 1) free jazz, 2) math rock, 3) Black Country, New Road. On the London band’s second album there is less of the “fire in a pet shop” jazz than on their 2021 debut For the First Time, but there are still whiplash changes of time signature and songs that take forever to get going. Thankfully, music isn’t just about fun: it can be about creating remarkable soundworld”
““The next Arcade Fire – that’s our goal,” experimentalists Black Country, New Road joked at the start of 2020, riffing on the fact that the two bands have sprawling casts (the latter boasted seven at the time) while sounding almost nothing alike. Yet, surprisingly, with their second album, it seems they’ve delivered on that promise. Arriving just 364 days after the band’s debut – and mere days aft”
“Black Country, New Road push against the fate of oblivion on the excellent Ants From Up Here”
“For the First Time definitely wasn't a fluke.”
“The exceptional second album from the London group plays like a slow burn to a triumphant finale. Softer and more melodic, the band remains just as challenging and delightfully confounding as ever.”
“When Black Country, New Road released their debut album For the first time last February, they’d been sitting on the material for at least a year; songs like “Athens, France” and “Sunglasses,” though ultimately reworked on the album, had already been out since 2019. The group described For the first time as the summation of their first 18 months as a band, a helpful framing for such intricate, yet”
“Everything about Ants From Up There is fascinating and breathtaking. Isaac Wood’s voice is absolutely one of a kind and can convey emotion to an absurd degree. The emotional climaxes on this album are operatic in their grandeur. No song encapsulates this better than ‘Basketball shoes’, a 13 minute swaying epic which builds and releases tension from moment to moment and swells to its dramatic end. Songs like that are what makes music special. Musical talent amongst the band members is thick and heavy with every note measured and played to great effect. I feel personally hurt by Isaac’s ‘retirement’. I hope we eventually see this album get the tour it deserved. Fav song : Basketball Shoes”
“I didn’t have high hopes for this album but GOD DAMN, every single song is near perfect and it’s so completely my style ! I can’t really explain why I like it so much, as I suck at putting my feelings into words, but this album is awesome. It’s the first 10/10 I give in a very long time and also the first I give with my new system. Great fucking album. (Basketball shoes is overrated btw)”
“Beautiful album. Really well done and produced. Easy listen and has some real high quality songs”
“I tried over and over. I don’t think it’s bad, I just don’t see how people think it’s that amazing”
“Makes me cry every time just from the sheer emotions this album protrays”
“i gave this album a 5 on rym on release… how the times have changed”
“i don’t understand the hype for Concorde 😓”
