BY CHAD BOSWELL
Staff Writer
On March 24th, 2023, English rock band Black Country, New Road released their third studio album titled “Live At Bush Hall” which consisted of songs they performed obviously at Bush Hall located in the United Kingdom, these tracks were released on Spotify under this new record and my expectations for this album only exceeded slightly. Black Country, New Road (or just BCNR for short) over the past couple of years has made very good projects back in 2019 they released their debut record “For the first time” and then shortly after that in 2022 they released their second and most popular album “Ants From Up There” which is a musical masterpiece. So going into Live At Bush Hall I had great expectations for this record but it ended up being good but definitely not comparable to their other work which exceeded this album.
Unfortunately shortly after the release of “Ants From Up There” back in February of 2022, the front-man and lead singer of the band, Isaac Wood, left the band due to mental health issues. Now to all fans of BCNR, this was a huge deal because Isaac’s vocalism and singing on the last two records were phenomenal, especially in songs like “Sunglasses, Haldren, Basketball shoes” where he shows a lot of emotion in the music. Live At Bush Hall exceeded my expectations when it came to the instrumentals on the album, but with Isaac Wood leaving the band he had no part in this new record which left the vocals up to Taylor Hyde, the bassist of the band. Her vocals are not bad at all, it’s just going to take some getting used to when listening to the new music BCNR has released.
Overall “Live At Bush Hall” wasn’t bad at all, every song was pretty decent with some standout tracks like “Up Song, Turbines/Pigs, and Laughing Song” being really amazing and it shows that BCNR can create good music even with the departure of Isaac from the band. I would give this new BCNR album a high 8/10, it is going to take some time to grow on me but I sure hope it does.