Black Midi
Hellfire

“The race is about to begin, the race is about to begin”

We are undoubtedly in a very prolific period for the British scene with a post(?)-post-punk feel, especially for those bands that have sprouted from the London pub environment of The Windmill. After the interesting debut of Squid with Bright Green Field (2021), the second work by Black Country, New Road, Ants From Up There (2022), has stirred both critical and public acclaim (especially among the communities of young listeners scattered across the web).

It is now the turn of Hellfire, the latest effort by Black Midi released just over a year after their second album Cavalcade. The young band comprised of Geordie Greep, Cameron Picton, and Morgan Simpson has stood out from the beginning for the extreme mutability of their sound: if their debut Schlagenheim was characterized by alienating grooves à la Talking Heads, sharp guitars in the post-hardcore tradition of Shellac, and paranoid and theatrical lyrics in the style of Pere Ubu, Cavalcade instead left many early fans bewildered: more expansive and structured compositions, a less noisy and more refined sound, art-rock and fusion veins.

Hellfire is the natural evolution of this path and, at the same time, its natural degeneration.

The first, glaring impression that emerges at the very first listen is that this record is a barrage. In just under 40 minutes, we are bombarded with dissonant, contradictory, sarcastic, and contaminated musical material. The tracks average five minutes in length but, due to the way sections, arrangements, and dynamics are stitched together, they seem much longer. All this logically leads to the second, glaring impression: post-punk has definitively taken a backseat. Compared to what? The most intuitive answer seems to be progressive rock. These two words, especially after the conditioning to which years of particularly narrow-minded "criticism" and slavish epigones have subjected us, sound almost like a somewhat blasphemous and offensive contradiction considering the punk roots of the group and the entire scene from which it comes. Yet, although seventies influences are very present, Hellfire is far from the bland citationism of Steven Wilson or the muscular technicality of Animals As Leaders.

The truth is that Black Midi are, not without some effort and a few missteps, shaping their own language. After the tentative steps taken in Cavalcade to expand their compositional horizons, in Hellfire, Black Midi accelerate with disarming enthusiasm and anarchy. The album is dense with ideas, and the material that Greep and his fellows draw from is extremely varied: Sugar/Tzu rests on a stunning minimalist riff inspired by “Glass-iana”; Eat Man Eat is a flamenco-punk; Welcome To Hell contains a hardcore section; Still has an ambient tail; 27 Questions is divided into two parts by a vaudeville interlude. This fragmentation is one of the main aspects of the album: it's an approach that could be defined as post-progressive, where elements of various languages are consciously mixed to create a decadent diorama of stylistic remnants. The melodies and harmonies are curiously reminiscent of the jazz taste and musicals of the '30s and '40s (The Defence is one of the most successful examples). The arrangements are aggressive and relentless, as in The Race Is About To Begin where Greep recites the long text over a dizzying instrumental ride. The cover image, depicting a dreamlike landscape made of sci-fi waste and discarded 3D models, is a faithful testament to the cold brutality with which these different styles and languages are incestously and unscrupulously fused and then presented with a cheeky grin.

Hellfire is a record that demands a lot from the listener, and it’s clear how the weaknesses of the record are often mirrored by its strengths: sometimes the structures are excessively fragmented, the nonsensical texts do not always work properly, the influences (to cite the most obvious: Genesis, King Crimson, Cardiacs, Primus, and This Heat) sometimes emerge a bit too forcefully. These are all symptoms of a formula that has matured significantly but still hasn’t reached its destination. But considering that all three members of Black Midi are just over twenty years old, it is not unreasonable to hope that the path is the right one.

On this note, it is necessary to talk about the renewed sound of the band: despite the record sometimes suffering from questionable production and mixing choices, it finally seems that a distinct Black Midi language is consolidating. Having almost completely abandoned the noise and post-hardcore suggestions of their debut, Hellfire seeks maximalism through instrumentation akin to a big band: a complete horn section, strings, accordions, keyboards, even a melodica; the arrangements appear much more solid than those of Cavalcade, sometimes dizzyingly empty and other times impenetrably full and threatening. If not for two songs sung by Picton, Greep's shrill and almost cartoonish voice confirms itself as a trademark of the group, improving in performance compared to previous records. It would also be criminal not to reiterate Simpson's contribution, whose drumming versatility and exuberance have become indispensable symbols of Black Midi.

In conclusion, I consider Hellfire the best record (so far) by Black Midi and certainly one of the most interesting releases of 2022.

I strongly recommend everyone take a deep breath and dive into the fire of hell.