Black Country New Road immediately won over the hearts of many a music critic with For the First Time, an angular album from a band that dazzled us with their unexpected fluency in both the language of jagged post-punk and the idiosyncratic, colorful chatter of free jazz. If their debut didn’t nab you, well, 2022’s Ants From Up There, with its departure to a sweeter brand of expansive melancholy, certainly grabbed you by the heartstrings and, at the very least, reminded you that you spent a lot of time in high school crying to Arcade Fire songs.
When original lead singer Isaac Wood abruptly departed, Black Country New Road faced the daunting challenge of reinventing themselves while still facing the overwhelming expectations noted above. Forever Howlong is their response—a record that continues down the swirling, grandiose, baroque pop pipeline set into motion back on Ants From Up There while scaling back the towering, sometimes overly masculine-flavored intensity of their previous albums.
Forever Howlong is still plenty intense, but it refreshingly shifts in a more feminine direction. Of course, this has to do with the fact that vocal duties are now shared between female members Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery, and May Kershaw, but it also has to do with the ornate, intricate nature of the music itself.
“Besties” kicks things off with harpsichord-infused baroque pop, warm and sweet on the surface but emotionally dense and sweeping underneath. The song exudes a melancholic charm, capturing the wistful complexity unique to female “best friendships”. Oftentimes, after all, the title of “best friend” is not only more hard-won than any kind of romantic relationship, it’s also responsible for shouldering a lot more weight than titles like “boyfriend”, “girlfriend”, “husband”, or “wife” ever will.
While the song’s orchestral swells occasionally overpower its intimacy, the lyrics resonate with bittersweet honesty, blending discordant elements with airy, expressive vocals. This opening track is one of the record’s most potent, and throughout Forever Howlong, moments of playful simplicity—whether musical or emotional—consistently outshine the album’s excesses.
For example, “Salem Sisters” is among the most spirited offerings. Exuberant piano and brightly eccentric string arrangements give it an almost Beatles-by-way-of Harry Nilsson dramatic edge. Similarly, “Birthday Party” doesn’t shy away from a weirdly catchy kind of brightly colored, practically showtunes-like eccentricity.
Neither “Birthday Party” nor “Salem Sisters” would make any sense on For the First Time or Ants From Up There, and that’s part of their allure. One of the most exciting things about Black Country, New Road is their relentless unpredictability, and few sounds capture that spirit better than the belligerently dynamic chorus of recorders on the title track. It’s a real moment of psychedelic melancholy tinged in that specifically English eccentric way that would make Syd Barrett proud.
Forever Howlong is a challenging, often beautiful album that occasionally buckles under the weight of its ambition. Moments of brilliance emerge when Black Country New Road’s theatricality and emotional depth align, but at times, the ornate instrumentation feels more suffocating than immersive. The record demands patience, but whether it rewards that patience will vary by listener.