Black Country, New Road’s first studio album since singer Isaac Wood’s departure in 2022 finds lead vocals now shared between Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery and May Kershaw. It’s refreshing that the baroque rock sextet haven’t tried to replicate Wood’s anguished croon and are no longer performing any of those old songs. His absence transforms the band’s disposition, replacing its emotional austerity with a muscular lightness.
The three women’s voices work well together, in unison and during their separate turns – charmingly similar in the mannered precision of their diction but distinct enough to convey their individual personalities. Production is sensitively handled by James Ford, placing you right in the room with the band’s impeccable musicianship.
The songs aren’t quite as riveting as those on Ants from Up There (2022) or For the First Time (2021). Still, Two Horses is a majestic three-act road movie, minimal yet expansive. Alt-folk gem Mary unfolds through spare storytelling, bathed in bathos as its eponymous heroine struggles to take her own advice to “make this week a wonder”. And For the Cold Country is BC,NR at their best, all the way to its gloriously unbuttoned, cacophonous finale.
