More about: Black Country, New Road

Black Country, New Road are, to understate it wildly, something of a big hype right now. Despite being relatively sub-radar until the first half of the year, some touring time with avant-rock experimenters Black Midi and the kings of squat-rock Fat White Family has positioned this gang of fresh-faced virtuosos firmly in the main beam.

If you haven’t heard of them, though, don’t be too hard on yourself. The somewhat elusive seven piece from Cambridgeshire via London haven’t exactly been churning out music (only one single ‘Sunglasses’ has been released) and they’ve been fairly quiet on the press and interview front to date.

Given the aforementioned hype, their show at tonight’s Moth Club is rammed to the glittery, vaulted ceiling with chin-strokey types eager to catch an early glimpse of the band in its nascence.

Black Country are, like quite a few other of this year’s breakout indie stars (Black Midi, Dry Cleaning) a band led not so much by a vocalist, but a verbalist. That is to say that frontman Isaac Wood acts as a sort of menacing, side-of-stage narrator regaling the audience with peculiar half confessional, half fictional stories of everything from sexual inadequacy to Kendall Jenner.

It’s intensely delivered, with Wood grimacing and rolling his eyes as if reliving these sordid tales as he delivers each acerbic line. His words are backed by a shape-shifting maelstrom of honking and wailing saxophone, walls of synth and fuzzy guitars and sinewy violin lines.

Their sound leaps between rolicking gypsy folk to angular free jazz. It’s hard to pull a joining thread between it all, and some tracks are more a treat for those with a love for daring musical feats (odd stops, jaunty syncopation, peculiar measures) than those who love a straight forward foot stomper. That being said, they're utterly arresting live and are sending guitar music in what feels like a far more cerebral direction than we’ve seen for some time.

More about: Black Country, New Road