Written by Spike Sidor

CAVALCADE

black midi cavalcade Review Album Cover

BLACK MIDI

2021 ART-ROCK/EXPERIMENTAL-ROCK/PROG-ROCK

Cavalcade is the second full length album by English rock freaks black midi. Freak, of course, used as a compliment, for the band is sonically all over the place, less like a chameleon shifting its colors and more like a rampaging bull that occasionally sits down to calmly paint impressionist landscapes. This absurd comparison applies not only to the change between Cavalcade and its predecessor, hell I wouldn’t be able to identify this as the same band except maybe for a track or two, but to each ensuing song. The initial stylistic jump from the first to second track gave me one of the most delightful cases of sonic whiplash I’ve ever had.

Their debut, Schlagenheim, was noisy, intensely, a flurry of artsy abrasion, meanwhile Cavalcade has a dash of no wave furry but a dash is all. The band is more reserved, letting string, horns, and some honest-to-god gorgeous vocal performances take center stage. If I had to describe it in as few words as possible I’d say it’s art prog rock with a bad boy twist, the extra edgy guys at your private liberal arts college who wanted to contort their dad’s record collection into a malformed beast. Still with reverence the potion is mixed and the incision is made. Maybe that edgy guys comment seemed a bit chiding as black midi continues to show on Cavalcade that they are one of the most dynamic acts in music today. At the front of the promenade is John L; angular guitars pepper the front, discordant pianos slammed seemingly at random add to the manic anxiety of the track. The lyrics compliment it well, painting a portrait of a devious man walking into town, a storm of chaos in his wake. We are quickly turned on our collective heads with the beautiful and melancholic Marlene Dietrich. Light plucked guitars with weeping strings set the scene, the lyrics are terrific and with the extra room the vocals steal the show. Every added bit of emphasis is just right and every line a quotable.

And my shuddering neighbour
Turns and roughly rouses me
He says, ‘While a kiss on the lips may not make a frog a prince
An orgasm renders any queen a witch: metamorphosis exists!’

The obtusely named Chondromalacia Patella is a bad trip through the land of prog rock. Large clashes of horns, percussion and guitars, sudden jazzy contemplation, vocals from pensive to harried. It flows terrifically although I wish I could hear the vocals better in the consuming haze. Slow, contrary to its name, is a feverish jazz no wave odyssey carved through repetition. I like the song well enough but the understated vocals are certainly not my favorite and at almost six minutes long it starts to wear on me near its finish. Shockingly the next track, Diamond Stuff, features whisper quiet everything, even the percussion is pensive. It’s a downright charming track that builds slowly with harrowing strings and alluring rising vocals. The action ramps back up with dethroned, the instrumental is great, I especially love the choppy guitars that skitter wildly about, but the loads of effects piled on the vocals make them simultaneously unintelligible and miserable. They take over much of the track on the back half, it’s not quite a complete ruining factor but it drags the positives by the feet into the hole that they’re in. Insanity is entirely let loose on Hogwash and Balderdash. A surprisingly dancy groove guides a load of abrasive instrumentation in secretly organized madness over an odd tale of two escaped inmates, terrific, strange and doesn’t overstay its welcome. The closer, Ascending Forth, is an orchestral epic, slowly gathering steam in the form of multiple guitars, cello, violin, sax, the list goes on, everyone is invited to the fireworks. A simple but poetic tale is woven of a musician who is pressured to conform to popular tastes, goes his own way and is struck down

Unanimously condemned
His masterpiece schmaltz
Impure, no heart, no taste

When the song finishes building for the climatic finish it’s sublime. The use of loud/quiet dynamics combined with the stunning vocal repetitions of “ascending forth” makes for a phenomenal finish. At its conclusion it’s hard not to be impressed by Cavalcade, cementing black midi as, and I know every critic has said this but it deserves to be repeated ad nauseum, one of the most exciting bands working today. Certainly this project isn’t perfect, it’s a bit splotchy, disjointed, and sure, sometimes I wish the band focused harder on a concept or style, making a more “whole” piece but their wandering artistry is a large part of their charm. You keep doing you black midi, whatever bizarre corner of the underground that takes you, I and the rest of your captivated audience will be waiting with bated breath. 

8/10

RELATED REVIEWS