REFERENCES! REFERENCES! REFERENCES!

A partial guide to the pantheon of Black Country, New Road.

BLACK MIDI

“I told you I loved you in front of Black Midi,” sings Wood on Track X, a woozy cross between Julia Holter and Wild Beasts. Associates from the scene around south London’s Windmill, the two bands united as Black Midi, New Road for a charity show at the venue last Christmas.

SLINT

On Science Fair, a fable of raging insecurity and humiliation, Isaac Wood wishes he could have “fled from the stage with the world’s second-best Slint tribute act.” The Kentucky post-rock pioneers have left an undoubted mark on Black Country, New Road’s dynamics and storytelling; Wood’s penchant for self-laceration strikes again.

KENDALL JENNER

Half-sister to the Kardashians, Jenner has been a constant presence for the Insta-generation. Black Country, New Road have an early non-album track that bears her name, a sinister meditation on growing up in public and the violence – real or metaphorical – it entails.

ARIANA GRANDE

In the single version of Athen’s, France (lyrics changed for the album), Wood sings of a girl who has the former child star’s 2019 hit Thank U, Next “stuck in her head”. Not necessarily a positive sign for their relationship, given it lists her previous lovers and then commits only to “Ari” herself.

RICHARD HELL

“I wish all my kids would stop dressing up as Richard Hell,” snarls Wood on the menaceheavy middle section of Sunglasses, as the narrator hides behind shades, feeling invincible. All the generations here are pretty blank, though, from the raging father figure to the girl who “sells chemtrails to the students at Bedales” – a rare post-rock namecheck for the artsy boarding school in Hampshire.