Words: Johnny Fry

London’s Black Country, New Road continue their feather duster tease routine by proceeding to tickle us with a second audiovisual release titled ‘Track X’. This comes from their forthcoming album ‘For The First Time’, released on Ninja Tune on February 5. The post-punk, jazz-influenced septet have also announced headline dates for November at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and an accompanying live-stream to celebrate the album release. 

Is ‘Track X’ hinting that ‘For The First Time’ is going to be a wider-ranging collection of works than fans could have previously foreseen? The metaphorical body language evoked by the track is incomparable to their last release; less salutes to post-punk royals, more homecoming waves to a potential new sound. This comes as a consequence of an optimistic shift towards a brighter and increasingly wistful timbre. A tone that you’d expect to hear soundtracking a quasi-emotional montage scene in an early ‘Skins’ episode – certainly not a bad thing… in fact a positively nostalgic path to be taken down but if you find Channel 4 teen dramas cringeworthy or dated consider listening to the track without the aid of the video first. Despite the softer approach, the evidently virtuoso band doesn’t sound like they’ve held back any of the infantry with new guitar chimes sauntering into the track at a soft incline.

Both ‘Science Fair’ and ‘Track X’ had me staring out my window impatiently waiting for the postman to deliver the rest of the goods… until more sounds are added to their Bandcamp page.