Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There (4LP) - Deluxe Edition Vinyl

Black Country, New Road’s second album feels like lightning caught in a jar. Ants From Up There landed in February 2022, just days after singer and guitarist Isaac Wood announced he was leaving the band, and that timing gave the whole thing a strange, tender weight. You hear a group pushing toward something grand and communal, then watch the door quietly close behind them. It is a heartbreak record that somehow refuses to wallow, and it has already settled into modern-classic territory.

Where their debut had the wiry edge of the Windmill scene, this one opens out into chamber pop and post-rock, lush without losing its nerve. The seven members knit violin, saxophone, piano and guitar into arrangements that swell and fall like a tide. Georgia Ellery’s violin and Lewis Evans’ sax don’t just decorate the songs, they carry the melodic spine. Tyler Hyde’s bass and Charlie Wayne’s drumming add spring and drama, while May Kershaw and Luke Mark round out a set of players who sound like they know when to step forward and when to leave space. It is a big-hearted record, but the intimacy never disappears.

“Chaos Space Marine” bursts out of the gate with a show tune grin and a tangle of key changes that never feel showy, just excited. “Concorde” glides in close behind, all hush and ache, the vocal pulling you in on little details while the band lets air in around the edges. “Bread Song” might be the one that gets under your skin if you like music that whispers then bruises. The room noise, the held breaths, the way the chords refuse the obvious resolution, it all serves the lyric’s quiet devastation.

Midway through, “Haldern” and “Mark’s Theme” act like exhale moments, little palette cleansers before the back half’s emotional run. Then come two undeniable centrepieces. “The Place Where He Inserted the Blade” starts like a modest indie lament and swells into something close to a group sing, a knot-in-the-throat thing that would have toppled a lesser band. “Snow Globes” rides Wayne’s blizzard of drums, a rolling storm that keeps building while the vocal stays plain and clear. It is a neat trick, beauty and chaos side by side, and it works because the performances are locked in. Closer “Basketball Shoes” is the long goodbye, a multi-part suite fans had chased in live recordings for years that finally arrives in full colour. It’s patient, it aches, and it lands.

The reception matched the ambition. Critics lined up with raves, from five-star reviews in the Guardian and NME to Best New Music at Pitchfork, and the album shot into the UK top five on release. For a band that had just lost its frontman, that success felt like a shared vote of confidence in the songs themselves. The group shifted gears soon after, writing fresh material for shows rather than playing this record without Wood, which only deepened the sense that Ants From Up There exists as a sealed little world.

If you collect, this is a must on the shelf. The dynamic swings and roomy arrangements shine on Black Country, New Road vinyl, and Ants From Up There vinyl in particular rewards a proper sit-down listen. Piano and strings breathe, cymbals bloom, the low end feels warm rather than woolly. I’ve spun a copy side by side with a stream and there is a real lift in presence. If you like to buy Black Country, New Road records online, it is not a hard one to track down, though clean early pressings tend to vanish fast whenever the band’s name pops back up in the news. Keep an eye on your local if you are in the hunt for Black Country, New Road albums on vinyl. In vinyl records Australia circles, the chatter never really stopped, and I still see copies disappear in a Melbourne record store before lunch on weekends.

Part of the pull is the story, sure, but the bigger part is simple. This is a generous album that meets you where you are. It can be the loud, brave thing you blast in the car, or the late-night record that leaves you staring at the ceiling. It carries the scars of a band in transition and turns them into something communal. Two years on, it still feels like a friend pulling up a chair.