Forever Howlong by Black Country, New Road 🎵

Everyone around me knows that I’ve obsessed with Forever Howlong since its release on April 4 a few weeks ago. I’ve been listening to Black Country, New Roads comeback nonstop ever since and even bought its CD (my ultimate gesture of showing love to the craft, I guess).

It starts out really strong and manages to maintain that strength all throughout the album through crescendos, instrumental breaks, and lyrical breakdowns that culminate the best rock music I’ve heard in a while; some of it folk-ish, vaguely Western tracks like Two Horses and Mary, while most of it is clearly post-rock.

The vibe all throughout this album is very traditional. From Two Horses to For the Cold Country, we get very traditional imagery of riding horses through the countryside and taking off one’s armor (even if metaphorically), it still evokes a certain image in the listener’s mind that isn’t of our time which doesn’t surprise considering the band’s name anyway.

(It shouldn’t be ignored how pop culture is moving towards war imagery to explain interpersonal conflicts and living in the wild again. Maybe relevant in our times now, especially where the world seems to be heading.)

I live for the three track run starting with Happy Birthday through For the Cold Country to Nancy Tries to Take the Night. The lyricism and instrumentation really peak here. While this album is filled with shocking moments where the music catches you off guard with how suddenly loud it gets, these three songs take it to a whole new level.

The drums on this album are a personal highlight. I so loved Fetch the Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple precisely because of it’s immaculate and intricate drums arrangements and this is the first album ever since that one that matches the attention to detail given to the drums.

I think the title track is about self-optimization and the hustle culture always on the lookout to increase their productivity. They want to perfect themselves and be happy all the time. So unhappiness is an error that needs to be fixed which means a hyper fixation on physical attributes that would cure the narrator’s mental issues.

The violins saxophone sounds so medieval. At times, this album truly sounds like it’s an opera with a clown as a protagonist that is running through a castle dancing and throwing stuff around. All is a show to appease some grumpy nobility, mainly the king. But especially so on the title track Forever Howlong.

My absolutely favorite track of this entire project is easily Nancy Tries to Take the Night. The vocal performance, lyrics, the saxophone, and guitar riffs are insane together. Humans should not be capable of creating something so heavenly while simultaneously having the capacity to destroy like we do.

My interpretation of the song is that a young couple – with the story centering the woman – had an unintended pregnancy. The woman was living a happy, adventurous life that was fulfilling to her while bringing in lots of scrutiny and misogyny from the townspeople (or so I assume). So much so that they called her a “whore.”

She contemplates having an abortion to save face for probably getting pregnant unwed, but there is also the fact that she and her partner wouldn’t afford having a baby anyway. So while the decision to get the fetus aborted saves the day, it keeps her up at night wondering what if things were differently.

Something has to be said about the range of perspectives we get on this record: after Isaac Wood left the band, they had to scramble to replace him as a vocalist at the very least. The result was three women taking up the job of singing while the band collectively writes the songs. Honestly, it can’t get better than this.

Forever Howlong as an album is what WOMAN’S WORLD by Katy Perry or Man’s World by Marina (and both of the albums they were featured on) were never equipped to be: a project covering the wide range of the female experience that isn’t and doesn’t want to be exclusive. It’s not here to tell us what a woman is and what she isn’t. They aren’t here to girlboss their underlings. Instead they want to be egalitarian and truly free, however, never at the expense of someone else and never excluding women they deem “unfit” to be free like in Katy Perry’s neoliberal “feminism.”

This album is seriously so good, definitely up there with EUSEXUA by FKA twigs for me. I don’t want to compare it to any older releases in order to not let recency bias interfere with my judgement.

Rating: 5/5