Black Country, New Road share live session of "Opus"
Selected praise for "For the first time":
“One of the best albums of 2021” - The Observer (5/5)
“Stunning” - The Sunday Times
"The most exciting new band of 2021" - The Times (5/5)
“Has the veneer of masterpiece about it.” - Loud & Quiet (10/10)
"a triumph" - NME (5/5)
"the album packs in a career’s worth of ideas and suggests this band could go on to become something even more special." - London Evening Standard (5/5)
"a significant milestone in modern guitar music." - CLASH (9/10)
"For The First Time is ferocious and endlessly intelligent, highly considered and wildly improvised, eked out with bristling tension and set alight with a burning intensity and a knowing smile" - The Line Of Best Fit (9/10)
"You'll be hard pushed to find a more adventurously self-assured debut this year" - Uncut (9/10)
"Exploratory British alt-rock debut to get excited about" - MOJO (4/5)
"“This mind-bending musical odyssey is one to savour” - The i (4/5)
"Black Country, New Road’s first full-length statement becomes a thing wholly unto themselves, a document of restless creativity and incisive minds processing an era of too much mediation and stimulation."
- Stereogum (Album of the Week)
"true storytellers who have captured the passion and intensity of our cynical times." - Gigwise (8/10)
"Black Country, New Road might be the perfect band." - The Quietus
“If the world needs saving, maybe they’re the band to do it” - The FADER
"Together, they have carved out a niche with expansive compositions that take the mood of post-punk and rough it up with grinding guitars, cinematic flourishes, klezmer breakdowns and a kind of sweeping, desperate romanticism." - CRACK
"a frenetic, fireball of their caustic, maniacal post-punk meets acid-jazz cacophony that makes the young outfit stand alongside the very best"
- So Young
"Anxiously excellent" - The FACE
"On the cusp of a debut that comes good on all the obtuse, esoteric groundwork they’ve spent the past two years laying” - DIY, Class of 2020
“It is razor sharp as you might imagine, darkly comic, completely impossible to box, and I love it for all those reasons" - Mary Anne Hobbs
"Just loving how gargantuan and risky this is, really fucking with this, really messing with it" - Anthony Fantano (The Needle Drop)
In February, the London seven-piece Black Country, New Road released a much-anticipated debut "For the first time" on Ninja Tune which saw them embed themselves as a vital prospect in forward-thinking music. One, perhaps best summed up by The Times who wrote in their 5/5 write-up that they were "the most exciting band of 2021" and The Observer who called their record "one of the best albums of the year". "For the first time" was welcomed by extensive critical support globally, and also made a significant dent on the UK Albums Chart, landing at #4 in its first week, a remarkable achievement for a largely experimental debut record.
Today the band share a live session video of "Opus", the closer from that album and a recently playlisted single at BBC 6 Music. The filming is an excerpt from LiveNOW's "Live From Another World" series, where Black Country, New Road joined the likes of Squid, Greentea Peng and Griff in creating distinctive and immersive live performances for the platform. As well as an incendiary take on “Opus” the session includes interview snippets with the band and live renditions of “Track X” and “Bread Song”, as well as a live version of guest artist, Ethan P. Flynn’s “Television Show”.
Watch "Opus" HERE
Watch "Live From Another World" in full HERE
Their recent album "For the first time" also reached #1 on Any Decent Music, #2 at Album Of The Year and sat at #1 on Rate Your Music for several weeks, remaining the record to generate the most fan reviews and site discussion there this year. Black Country, New Road were also declared Artist Of The Week and Album Of The Week at the likes of The Observer, The Line Of Best Fit and Stereogum, and saw features, including covers and reviews, from the likes of Mojo, NPR, CRACK, Uncut, The Quietus, Pitchfork, The FADER, Loud & Quiet, The Face, Paste, The Needle Drop, DIY, NME, CLASH, So Young, Dork and more.
Black Country, New Road's live performances have already gained legendary status from fans and has seen them labelled "one of the UK's best live bands" by The Guardian. After the success of their recent livestream direct from the Southbank Centre - where the band were joined by a choir for the debut of new material, showing a second full-length record is already within their sights, and for which the band received a further 5/5 live review from The Times - and a recent stand-out performance at the BBC 6 Music Festival, the band are currently on a sold out UK tour with three London headliners at The Islington Assembly Hall taking place next week, the third added after the first two sold out in three minutes.
As well as their own sold out dates, the band have a busy year and further ascent in front of them, with festival dates including End Of The Road, Wide Awake and Gilles Peterson's We Out Here, as well as extensive shows and festivals across Europe and another UK headline tour of their own to follow in November and December.
Young's Ethan P. Flynn will support at the band's Electric Ballroom headliner on 14th September and will then join them as the support act for their November and December headline dates later in the year. The two have unofficially collaborated in the past and now the band also feature on a live version of Flynn's "Television Show".
The band will play the following dates in 2021:
25/06/2021 - YES (2x sets), Manchester - UK (SOLD OUT)
26/06/2021 - Brudenell Social Club (2x sets), Leeds - UK (SOLD OUT)
27/06/2021 - Islington Assembly Hall, London - UK (SOLD OUT)
28/06/2021 - Islington Assembly Hall, London - UK (SOLD OUT)
29/06/2021 - Islington Assembly Hall, London - UK (SOLD OUT)
07-11/07/2021 - Pohoda, Trencin - SK
12/07/2021 - Magnolia, Milan - IT
13/07/2021 - Piazza Delle Feste @ Porto Antico, Genoa - IT
14/07/2021 - Express Festival, Bologna - IT
16/07/2021 - Spilla, Ancona - IT
15/08/2021 - Rotondes, Luxembourg - LUX
19-22/08/2021 - We Out Here, Cambridgeshire - UK
02-05/09/2021 - End Of The Road, London - UK
03/09/2021 - Wide Awake, London - UK
14/09/2021 - Electric Ballroom, London - UK (SOLD OUT) *
23/10/2021 - Bumann & Sohn, Cologne - DE
24/10/2021 - Botanique Orangerie, Belgium - BE
25/10/2021 - Le Trabendo, Paris - FR
27/10/2021 - Le Grand Mix, Tourcoing - FR
28/10/2021 - Lieu Unique, Nantes - FR
29/10/2021 - Rockschool Barbey, Bordeaux - FR
30/10/2021 - Dabadaba, San Sebastian - ES
01/11/2021 - ZDB, Lisbon - PT (SOLD OUT)
02/11/2021 - El Sol, Madrid - ES
03/11/2021 - Laut, Barcelona - ES
05/11/2021 - Circolo della Musica, Turin - IT
06/11/2021 - Bogen F, Zürich - CH
08/11/2021 - Underdogs', Prague - CZ
09/11/2021 - Lido, Berlin - DE
10/11/2021 - Hydrozagadka, Warsaw - PL
11/11/2021 - Transcentury Update Warm Up @ UT Connewitz Leipzig - DE
12/11/2021 - Bahnhof Pauli, Hamburg - DE
14/11/2021 - Le Guess Who? Festival, Utrecht - NL
16/11/2021 - Paradiso Noord, Amsterdam - NL (SOLD OUT)
29/11/2021 - Chalk, Brighton - UK *
30/11/2021 - Junction 1, Cambridge - UK *
01/12/2021 - 1865, Southampton - UK *
03/12/2021 - Arts Club, Liverpool - UK *
04/12/2021 - Irish Centre, Leeds - UK (SOLD OUT) *
06/12/2021 - O2 Ritz Manchester, Manchster - UK *
07/12/2021 - Newcastle University Student Union, Newcastle Upon Tyne - UK *
08/12/2021 - SWG3, Glasgow - UK *
09/12/2021 - The Mill, Birmingham - UK *
10/12/2021 - The Waterfront, Norwich - UK *
12/12/2021 - SWX, Bristol - UK *
13/12/2021 - Y Plas, Cardiff - UK *
15/12/2021 - Whelan's, Dublin - IE (SOLD OUT) *
* - with Ethan P. Flynn
Tickets are available HERE
'For the first time' is available on Limited Edition White LP [with exclusive negative sleeve], Black LP, CD, as well as Cassette (BC,NR store only).
Order the album HERE
Black Country, New Road
For the first time
Out now on Ninja Tune
1. Instrumental
2. Athens, France
3. Science Fair
4. Sunglasses
5. Track X
6. Opus
Black Country, New Road are:
May Kershaw - Keys
Charlie Wayne - Drums
Luke Mark - Guitar
Isaac Wood - Vocals/Guitar
Tyler Hyde - Bass
Lewis Evans - Sax
Georgia Ellery – Violin
Further details on art direction and open source imagery:
The "For the first time" album cover and its related imagery (including Track X (The Guest)'s single cover) have all been selected from Unsplash, the internet's source of freely-usable images, creating an aesthetic for the band that is freed from their specific context. Any image can come from a diverse global range of photographers, in a way that feels more reflective of the visually eclectic nature of the digital age we are in and that the band have grown up in. The band chose to credit Unsplash and the photographer on the cover artwork itself, as a decision to let their audience into the process and invite them to join in in engaging with this growing open source culture.
As with earlier imagery, the band were emphatic about a sincerity in terms of showing friends, community and a sense of coming together, reflecting their own relationship as a long-term seven person band and close-knit friendship group since their youth.
More info / assets:
Full bio | Press Shots | Album Art
Find Black Country, New Road online:
Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | TikTok | Spotify | Apple | Soundcloud | YouTube | Bandcamp