Black Country, New Road’s new album “Forever Howlong” released on September 4th, is unsurprisingly impressive. With their previously released album of 2022, “Ants From Up There,” expectations were high for Black Country, New Road — and they delivered.
While, in my opinion, ‘Forever Howlong’ does not overthrow ‘Ants From Up There’ from the best of Black Country New Road’s discography, it is certainly worth a listen.
Where this album shines is in the bridge of each song. Black Country, New Road’s ability to build up songs to their bridge has always been one of their best talents. The songs in this album have intense climaxes that never cease to hit.
However, almost every song contains a huge bridge, making them not feel as special as they should be.
They also showcased their talent in playing with song structure and impressively breaking it apart in ways that work. The songs can stray from their structure in ways you wouldn’t expect while still managing to sound great and fit the song.
The only drawback in this album for me is the repetition. Each song can stand alone better than it does grouped in with the other songs on this album.
‘Forever Howlong’ starts strong with an indie song with orchestral elements that prepare you for the rest of the album: more indie songs with orchestral elements. Not often does the music stray from its designated sound. It can get repetitive, almost as if listening to a 52-minute song.
However, for Black Country, New Road this is common — they usually stick to the theme in their albums. This aspect comes down to preference, but I would have liked to hear something different.
2 out of the 11 songs on the album stuck out to me because of their departure from the album’s signature sound, “Two Horses” and “For the Cold Country.”
“Two Horses” has more of a folk sound to it with a lead acoustic guitar and inspiration from old western music giving it a sound separate from the others in the album.
“For the Cold Country” stuck out to me because of its sad and sultry sound, being very sad and slow sounding, breaking it away from the loud orchestral elements of the track.
Though the album itself might have felt repetitive, it was nice to hear more uplifting music from Black Country, New Road. Compared to their other music, they’ve really taken a fun and playful approach to this album which is a breath of fresh air for their discography.
For Black Country, New Road, this album showcased their musical intellect here — and although they were already ranked high in musical capability, this album pushes that incentive further. It seems they are incapable of making a bad song and crowds are going to stay in awe of any new release they put out.
