Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There

News of Isaac Wood’s departure from Black Country, New Road coincidentally hit right in the middle of writing this review. With that in mind - him having cited “the kind of sad and afraid feeling that makes it hard to play guitar and sing at the same time” - to point out it’s his vocal turn that elevates ‘Ants From Up There’ to truly special status without context might now read a little trite. And yet… that’s just it. Sure, the group have channelled their unquestionable virtuosity into serving the songs second time around - a violin lick there, a sax solo there, a woodwind intro just because they can - but it’s Isaac’s ability to convey the emotion in the lyrics that’s the apex of the record. With more than a few shades of Win Butler (a seven-piece collective of multi-instrumentalists means that’s not the only Arcade Fire nod that could be made, no doubt), a fellow Isaac, Brock of Modest Mouse, and even a little of early Maccabees-era Orlando Weeks, he possesses the strength to project his words, and simultaneously a faltering vulnerability that makes them believable. “Don’t eat your toast in my bed,” he sings, in a lyrical turn that has echoes of Joe Newman’s crisp packet, but somehow comes across oddly beautiful. Or the sprawling, twelve-plus minute closer ‘Basketball Shoes’, in which the group’s affinity for time signature switching teams up with Isaac’s pained delivery to compete with any midwest emo favourites.