Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road — Review

Released in February 2022, Ants From Up There is the second album by London seven-piece Black Country, New Road — and it arrived under extraordinary circumstances. Three days before the album’s release, lead vocalist and guitarist Isaac Wood announced his departure from the band, citing mental health concerns. The album, already completed and pressed, became a farewell document that neither the band nor listeners had planned for. This context is impossible to separate from the experience of listening to it, and the album’s themes of devotion, obsession, and the fear of losing what you love take on additional weight as a result.

The Band

Black Country, New Road emerged from the same South London scene that produced Black Midi and Squid, bands that shared members, venues, and an appetite for musical complexity. The group’s seven members — Wood (vocals, guitar), May Sherburn (violin), Georgia Ellery (violin, vocals), Lewis Evans (saxophone), Luke Mark (guitar), Tyler Hyde (bass), and Charlie Wayne (drums) — bring a chamber-ensemble quality to their arrangements that sets them apart from their post-punk peers.

Their debut, For the first time (2021), was a tense, abrasive record indebted to Slint, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and klezmer music. Ants From Up There represents a dramatic shift — warmer, more melodic, and more emotionally direct, with arrangements that owe as much to Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens as to post-rock.

The Music

”Chaos Space Marine”

The opening track immediately signals the album’s expanded ambitions. A bright, driving arrangement builds through multiple sections, with strings, saxophone, and dual guitars creating a dense but joyful texture. Wood’s vocal is more melodic than on the debut, and the song’s energy is infectious.

”Concorde”

The album’s centerpiece and its most celebrated track. Over an arrangement that builds from gentle guitar to a towering crescendo of strings, brass, and full band, Wood delivers a vocal of devastating vulnerability. The extended metaphor — comparing a failing relationship to Concorde, the beautiful but doomed supersonic aircraft — is handled with the precision of great literary writing. “I am trying to be the Concorde / I’m not a Concorde” lands with emotional force that the cleverness of the conceit never undermines.

”Bread Song”

A slow, hymn-like piece that strips the arrangement back to allow Wood’s vocal to carry the emotional weight. The imagery is domestic and specific — baking bread, morning routines — and the tenderness of the performance is almost unbearable given the context of Wood’s departure.

”Good Will Hunting”

Named after the 1997 film, this track builds steadily from a sparse opening to one of the album’s biggest crescendos. The saxophone and violin interplay is masterful, creating textures that recall both chamber music and post-rock. The lyrics address the fear of being unworthy of love, and the musical climax provides catharsis.

”Haldern”

A short, delicate interlude that provides breathing room between the album’s larger pieces. Violin and acoustic guitar create an atmosphere of gentle melancholy.

”The Place Where He Inserted the Blade”

One of the album’s most structurally sophisticated tracks, building through multiple distinct sections without ever feeling episodic. The arrangement grows increasingly complex, with each instrument adding new countermelodies and textures. The climax, featuring the full seven-piece ensemble at maximum intensity, is thrilling.

”Snow Globes”

The album’s longest track at over seven minutes, “Snow Globes” is an epic that moves through quiet passages of isolated piano and voice to massive, climactic passages where every instrument contributes. The dynamic range is extraordinary, and the emotional arc — from tenderness through anxiety to cathartic release — mirrors the album’s overall trajectory.

”Basketball Shoes”

The album’s closing track and its magnum opus. At over twelve minutes, “Basketball Shoes” begins with a whispered, almost spoken vocal over gentle guitar and piano, then builds — slowly, patiently, inexorably — through multiple crescendos to a final climax of staggering emotional intensity. The repeated refrain “Oh God of weather, oh God of tumbling / Oh, your generous heart” becomes a prayer, an incantation, a cry for help. When the full band enters for the final section, the effect is transcendent. It is one of the most powerful album closings in recent memory.

Themes

Wood’s lyrics throughout the album orbit around devotion and its complications. Love is presented as overwhelming, obsessive, and potentially destructive — not because the beloved is harmful but because the intensity of feeling is itself destabilizing. References to specific cultural artifacts (Concorde, basketball shoes, Billie Eilish) ground the emotional content in contemporary specificity, while the musical ambition lifts it toward the universal.

The Departure

Wood’s announcement of his departure, made via the band’s social media on February 1, 2022 — three days before Ants From Up There’s release — cast an inevitable shadow. The album’s songs about love, devotion, and the fear of collapse became retrospectively prophetic. Lines about not being able to continue, about the weight of feeling, about the gap between aspiration and capability — all of these gained new dimensions.

The band has continued without Wood, developing a more collaborative and less vocalist-centered approach. But Ants From Up There remains a document of the original seven-piece at its peak, and its emotional power is inseparable from the knowledge that it captures something that could not last.

For more on the current wave of British post-punk, see our 2020s post-punk guide. For other albums defined by dramatic circumstances, check our greatest farewell albums.

Verdict

Ants From Up There is a monumental album — musically ambitious, emotionally raw, and sequenced with an intelligence that rewards complete, uninterrupted listening. The performances are extraordinary, the arrangements are richly detailed, and the emotional content is handled with a maturity that belies the band members’ young ages. It is one of the finest albums of the 2020s so far.

Rating: 10/10