It has been over a year since Black Country, New Road entered the world of music with their new post-rock sound. The release of their debut, “For the first time,” launched the band into a wall of admiration by music critics. 

In my album review, I said I was eager to hear what the band was pulling up their sleeve for their next release. On Feb. 4, 2022, the band released their follow-up, “Ants from Up There.”

Just days before the album’s release, lead vocalist Isaac Wood announced his departure from the band. Hearing the news for myself, I was shocked. Wood’s vocals are what cemented the band’s debut as one of the best from last year. I cannot comprehend what the band would sound like without him. Once the band released the album, I went in knowing it could be the band’s last. 

After finishing the album, I was astonished. I thought the band needed at least five more years before they worked out their sound and created their magnum opus. Instead, the band seemingly skipped forward and immediately released it only a year later.

For this album, Wood abandons his spoken word vocals and genuinely sings throughout the entire album. Unlike most singers, there is no filter between his mind and the sounds his vocal cords produce. Wood sounds like he is in pain for the entirety of the album. Compared to the band’s debut, Wood’s vocals improve vastly and take the album to another level.

The production is upgraded as well. The band’s baroque instrumentation helps create a wall-of-sound akin to Radiohead’s “OK Computer.” The heavy use of trumpet and string instruments is comparable to other bands like Neutral Milk Hotel. The soft twang of different notes and chords from the guitars sound incredible. Every sound on this album is complete and complements the other.

Most tracks on the album omit a sense of nostalgia and melancholy. The best example of this is the track “Concorde.” The six-minute track ebbs and flows from soft instrumentation to a powerful climax. The song sounds like skipping through a field of flowers and then collapsing while having a midlife crisis. Wood utilizes the French aircraft as a metaphor to describe piecing one’s emotions back together after a harsh breakup. The track’s outro explodes into a collage of loud trumpets and guitars, sure to raise goosebumps.

However, none of the songs on the album compare to the finale, “Basketball Shoes.” I would truly consider this song to be one of the best closers to an album I have ever heard. The 12-minute track is split into three parts with interludes in between. The first part is a soft ballad, comparable to some of the other tracks on the album. The second part sounds similar to “Sunglasses” from the band’s debut. The track sounds more upbeat than some on the album and fits neatly into the song’s context.

But the third and final part blows the roof into the stratosphere. The song acts as the climax of the track, exploding into a collage of choir vocals, loud drums, piano keys and lots of other unidentifiable sounds. Wood screams like his life depend on it. The song ends on a string of random drumming and instrumental spasms before suddenly going quiet.

Black Country, New Road completely blew away my expectations for the album. The album is like a modern version of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.” These albums contain themes of nostalgia and melancholy, sexual undertones here and there, and the lead vocalists disappearing after the second album. I can say without a doubt this album has the potential to become a cult classic, and it will become a genre-defining album soon.

Score: 9.5/10