![]() Cameron Picton takes over vocals and he gives a very straight-faced and wholesome performance, supplemented by some earnest songwriting. It still adheres to the bands maximalist logic there’s roughly 26 different instruments on it, but it still has some toe-tapping moments of jamboree. “Still” has some noisy guitar smatterings and a drone outro to keep it labelled as avant-garde, but it’s largely a jangly folk track. While the call and response dynamic is integrated within the songs, it can still be found between the tracks, and the band still have moments where they stray a song away from the noise antics. Likewise laced throughout the album is their prior influence of sweeping Tony Bennett type showtunes, but also a more prominent folk edge. “Sugar/Tzu” leads with a false sense of emergency with a drum roll, leading to a light, horn embezzled loungy segment, only to kick into high gear with the previously noted math-rock riff. The final effect are these songs frenzying in the ear, only to suddenly halt for a briefly organic and scant stint, only to rev up again at a knee-jerk reaction. Cavalcade’s softer and harder aspects felt blocked within the album, meaning there were often chewy low-key bits of gristle bringing down the experience, but here it’s marbled throughout. Hellfire does the same, but the dynamic shock of Cavalcade as a whole is experienced continually throughout the album on each track. Their prior album Cavalcade was dynamic in how it met a ravaging frenzy of a track with a cooing, similarly grand but gentle ballad. But the most notable difference here is how this aspect is challenged by the band’s softer side. The heavier, experimental edge of Black Midi’s jumbled sound is framed at its peak, every riff and melody feels intricate, knotty, and serpentined together, but it all feels tightly so. “Eat Men Eat” toys with flamenco textures through hand claps and flamenco guitars but vilifies it to testosterone pumping urgency. The central riff on “Sugar/ Tzu” is pure bugged out, wriggling, and dazzling math rock bliss. This one-minute track Black Midi shows commitment to their maximalism, and their illogical clash of noise and baroque, all the while signaling their evolution, which the further tracks validate. A further lavish flood of strings takes over the track only to meet an atonal and sinister conclusion. ![]() A rapid-fire delivery, where he tightly spits out the lyrics over a looming heartbeat of strings and a simmer of guitar textures, all while a piano stumbles over the affair. On the opening title track the band’s predominate vocalist Geordie Greep massages the depraved desires of the Primus fan by introducing a new arsenal to the band. That isn’t to say this album is predictable this is Black Midi, stay on your toes. And now their new album Hellfire shows them refining and tightening the screws on this contrast. While the band still raged, they also let things soar and simmer more often than expected, allowing for a dichotomy between their fury and tenderness. A histrionic and refined sense of opera was found amongst the rubble. They could’ve succinctly rested into their idiosyncrasies, but on their follow up LP Cavalcade, they let the beast evolve, and also gave it a tie. Dazzlingly mad math rock riffs abound, mixed with the harsh nose of noise rock, supplemented by punk influences, an either screaming or deadpan vocalist, and the nutty free-jazz wicking drumming from Morgan Simpson, cemented their x-factor. This initial wave of intrigue manifested into the critical acclaim of Schlagenheim, their debut LP, whereby they proved themselves distinct from any other noise brutalist, through their baffling intricacies. Right from conception, listeners held Black Midi as something special, spawning near the center of discourse with their first single “ bmbmbm”, a gibbering bit of pummeling noise rock awesomeness which perked the ears of the buggier side of the music listening spectrum.
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