Black midi -Cavalcade (2021)

Black midi -Cavalcade

It’s hard to call anything progressive-rock these days. The term carries with it more baggage than just about any genre, evoking elaborate costumes, giant drum sets, and armadillo tanks. Even during its resurgence in the 90s, bands like The Mars Volta and Porcupine Tree pushed against those stereotypes enough that it was hard to even consider it a development of the same classification. Black midi, however, is prog-rock in the truest sense of the term. They are a rock band, more so than most, and more importantly, they are genuinely progressive. It’s hard to imagine a band doing more to further rock’s sound right now than Black midi, even without songs about spaceships.

By all accounts that might leave some disappointed in Cavalcade, a riveting and impressive outing that’s just as good as its predecessor but for all the same reasons. For many that’s a triumph, after all, Black midi’s debut Schlagenheim was an inventive tour de force that sounded unlike any other group. Their newest album doesn’t carry with it the same wow factor; listeners knew what to expect before listening. The band has changed their outlook though, where Black midi’s first record was built on improvisation, their second has been gestating for over three years, a process of trying to craft stronger more succinct tracks.

In that respect, the album is a rousing success, standout “Slow” provides fans with the brutal and mathy dynamics that define the band’s genre. It acts as a great centerpiece for the album, even if it may not push hard enough against the group’s distinctive sound to bring in any new fans. Luckily, it’s followed by one of the Cavalcade’s more subtle tracks. “Diamond Stuff” finds the band refining themselves to a measured and beautiful build, realizing what a Black midi track can sound like when distilled down to its most integral parts. Then there’s the loungey detour “Marlene Dietrich” a beguiling song that especially given its subject matter feels surprisingly natural amongst the tracklist. Inclusions like this push the album into more exciting territory, but not as far as it needs to go.

Cavalcade, much like its title suggests, is the sum of its individual parts, a great collection of songs, but still, exactly that. Schalgenheim on the other hand functioned as a whole, a statement from a young band that they could create something broadly new and invigorating. While both albums are truly great for separate reasons, after their first album, we expected the mold to be broken, and it turns out it wasn’t.

~7.0

Comments

Concert Review: Wilco at The Riviera Theatre, – 3/26/23

Wilco at The Riviera Theatre, – 3/26/23 Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood was once the center of the city’s booming entertainment district. Located at what had initially been the end of the L Train system, The Aragon Ballroom, Green Mill Jazz Club, and long-defunct Uptown Theatre quickly defined the corners of Broadway and Lawrence Avenue as the designated area for Chicagoans to congregate for the arts. As the area’s zeitgeist waivered though, the theatres grew into a weekend oasis of vibrancy amongst an otherwise casual and sleepy north-side neighborhood. Given Wilco’s consistent championing of Chicago’s local institutions, and another Uptown landmark Carol’s Pub in particular, The Rivera Theater seems like exactly the kind of venue for the band to host their latest three-night run and the start of their spring tour. Jeff Tweedy and company know the former movie palace well, playing there many times over the years and even using it as the base for a five-night series of performances b...

Buck Meek – Haunted Mountain (2023)

Buck Meek – Haunted Mountain Big Thief, one of the best and most adept bands of the 21 st century, has done more in six short years than most bands can squeeze out of an entire catalog. Each of their five studio albums has managed to expand their signature homespun charm into exciting, self-contained albums. The sound always moves forward but with distinct detours projecting their country-folk and singer-songwriter tendencies over disparate palates. The band’s prolificity extends to their solo catalog as well, the most notable inclusions naturally coming from lead singer and principal songwriter Adrianne Lenker. But behind her eclipsing generational talent, is guitarist Buck Meek, an artist who could easily shepherd his own headlining band if he needed to. Aside from some early, Big Thief-adjacent work, Meek’s true breakout was with 2021’s Two Saviors , a beautiful, alt-country collection of songs, most of which approached the quality, if not the scale of his mother band’s...

Fever Ray - Radical Romantics (2023)

Fever Ray – Radical Romantics Karin Dreijer’s debut solo album Fever Ray came out only shortly after Silent Shout , an album that was almost immediately hailed as The Knife’s masterpiece. The inevitable comparisons seeped out, no one was completely ready to accept the more cavernous Fever Ray as any sort of a replacement for the lush maximalism of Dreijer and her brother’s The Knife. Regardless, Dreijer had proved how essential they were to that project and by 2014, the two had disbanded. Fever Ray’s next album Plunge continued Dreijer’s push towards empty space with an angrier and more overtly political edge and simultaneously built Fever Ray into a proper entity in its own right. Radical Romantics is a Fever Ray album in that its fixations swarm around Dreijer, all their proclivities, and all their vulnerabilities. It’s also the closest Fever Ray has ever sounded like The Knife, whether it be the soaring and anthemic “Shiver”, or the pronounced synths ripples on “New Utensi...

The SoundBite

Search This Blog