black midi - Cavalcade ALBUM REVIEW
Look, these guys are cool, but calling them the King Crimson of our time is a little much, isn’t it?
If I’m being totally honest, I’ve never gotten the hype around black midi. If you don’t know, black midi is a part of this new wave of British prog-rock like Squid and Black Country, New Road. black midi’s debut album, Schlagenheim, and while I found it to be technically impressive, nothing else was that impressive. Honestly, I forgot about it until their new album, Cavalcade, was announced. That’s a bit of a hot take in the nerdy music world, but after the single “John L” from this project, my excitement grew. They were taking a more jazz-rock style and it was pretty exciting. That’s pretty much all I have to say, so let’s get into Cavalcade.
Let’s get some positives out of the way first. I absolutely adored the closing track “Ascending Forth” mainly because of how ambitious it was. It’s definitely my favorite track and a surprisingly great ballad. “Diamond Stuff” was pretty cool too, but outside of that, there really wasn’t anything that impressed me. Vocalist Geordie Greep does something odd with his voice on nearly all of these tracks and it just annoys the hell out of me. I’ve heard a decent amount of post-rock albums this year, but this just doesn’t feel like it’s left as much of an impression as Parannoul or Black Country, New Road.
I guess Cavalcade is less goofy than black midi’s debut album, but at least it made black midi have a personality. Granted, I do like this more because I just find this a little catchier than Schlagenheim, but there are some points where it seems like the band members are playing different songs at once. What everyone else says is unexpected, I say repetitive.
6/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
Cavalcade is a Rough Trade release.
If I’m being totally honest, I’ve never gotten the hype around black midi. If you don’t know, black midi is a part of this new wave of British prog-rock like Squid and Black Country, New Road. black midi’s debut album, Schlagenheim, and while I found it to be technically impressive, nothing else was that impressive. Honestly, I forgot about it until their new album, Cavalcade, was announced. That’s a bit of a hot take in the nerdy music world, but after the single “John L” from this project, my excitement grew. They were taking a more jazz-rock style and it was pretty exciting. That’s pretty much all I have to say, so let’s get into Cavalcade.
Let’s get some positives out of the way first. I absolutely adored the closing track “Ascending Forth” mainly because of how ambitious it was. It’s definitely my favorite track and a surprisingly great ballad. “Diamond Stuff” was pretty cool too, but outside of that, there really wasn’t anything that impressed me. Vocalist Geordie Greep does something odd with his voice on nearly all of these tracks and it just annoys the hell out of me. I’ve heard a decent amount of post-rock albums this year, but this just doesn’t feel like it’s left as much of an impression as Parannoul or Black Country, New Road.
I guess Cavalcade is less goofy than black midi’s debut album, but at least it made black midi have a personality. Granted, I do like this more because I just find this a little catchier than Schlagenheim, but there are some points where it seems like the band members are playing different songs at once. What everyone else says is unexpected, I say repetitive.
6/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
Cavalcade is a Rough Trade release.
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