For the most time on here I try to focus on things that I like. It doesn't really seem to be worthy making the effort to write about it otherwise. It's not as if there isn't a lot of really great music coming out right now, I can't remember a year that has been blessed with so many very good records clustered together at January and the beginning of February as this particular one. I hope I'll find time to write about a few more of the ones taking my fancy over the next few days.
But very occasionally I'll come across something that is getting an unbelievable record company push and critical attention that I simply can't understand. Such is the case with the debut album from Black Country, New Road, a young British band whose debut album For the first time, (note the lack of capitals), which came out yesterday, has been treated in some quarters as some kind of new dawn.
I found it myself an impossible record to listen to all the way through to. Generally I'll try to give something a considered hearing for something that initially turns me off but in this case I just can't. The parts of the record that I did manage to get through are portentious and give off the impression of plumbing profound emotional depths while never really actually doing so as far as I could determine. This relentless earnestness is a trick that can be pulled off magnificently sometimes. Radiohead are the band that immediately come to mind.
But Black Country, New Road just don't have the chops to back up the veil of dark grandeur that they wish to convey. It's music as homework to my ears. Don't believe the hype I'd say, and I'm not the only person or reviewer to have responded in this way in this respect. Looks like this is set to be 2021's most divisive record, making great strides commercially and in some critical districts while being reviled elsewhere. I know which side I'm on. Right, back to music that I actually like.
No comments:
Post a Comment