Album of the month | black midi: Hellfire — Full of visceral thrills-Sports News , Firstpost

On their new album Hellfire, black midi take us on a carnival ride through the inferno and back. The London-based rock powerhouse, currently made up of Geordie Greep, Cameron Picton and Morgan Simpson, build on the blueprint set by their previous efforts with a little more polish and pyrotechnics. If the songs on their debut album Schlagenheim spawned from jam sessions that foregrounded their restless improvisation, last year’s follow-up Cavalcade came with a more clear and calculated design without sacrificing their dynamism. The approach is further sharpened on Hellfire, a willfully abrasive, dizzyingly frenetic, insidiously infectious, uncompromisingly crafted concept album.

Across the 10 songs of Hellfire, black midi expand their sonic palette with grand instrumentation, embrace their penchant for grander storytelling, and evoke the grandest apocalyptic imagery. Each song is a container of its own myth, with Greep relating it in the first person — a marked deviation from the third-person perspective on Cavalcade. This deviation grants a moral ambiguity to the diabolical alter-egos he assumes over the course of the record, enhancing the level of immersion. “Sugar/Tzu” sets the scene for a boxing bout between two light cruiserweights which ends when one of them is killed by a young boy. “Eat Man Eat” tells the story of a gay couple fleeing from military service. “Dangerous Liaisons” follows a farmhand-turned-hitman sent to hell by Satan for his crimes.

What is impressive about these songs and the storytelling is the economy, of which black midi seems to possess a preternatural sense. In an album that runs under 39 minutes, they manage to build closed-off hellscapes, introduce us to so many fiendish characters, and at the same time, display their tuneful virtuosity. No song lasts longer than it should. And no song sounds the same. But they do borrow from an extensive array of familiar signifiers. Flamenco, jazz, funk, cabaret, post-punk all make merry in the anarchy. Piano, strings, horns, bass, guitars, drones and drums come together in the overstimulating chaos. Greep’s voice shapeshifts according to the meter and tempo shifts. Yet, even amidst the overstimulating chaos, the band finds ways to re-centre their music on the strength of their interplay. The corrosive nature of their soundscapes belies the clear sense of direction they carry.

“Sugar/Tzu” is a great showcase for black midi’s melodic dynamism. Bells chime. Ring announcers declare a boxing match between two Sugar Ray Robinson and Sun Tzu types as “the sporting event of the year,” as a tender jazz melody takes over. Not for long though, as Simpson ramps up the proceedings with pulverising bursts on the drums. Add Kaidi Akinnibi’s saxophone line to the equation, the result is a rapturous delight. Picton gets to share, not show off, his own flamenco prowess with the guitar on “Eat Men Eat.” The band gets political on “Welcome to Hell,” a catchy tune which plunges us into the cavernous depths of human despair caused by war and disease. “To die for your country does not win a war/To kill for your country is what wins a war,” sings Greep.

The first half ends with “Still,” an emotional buffer of a track that welcomes us into its gentle finger-picked embrace. It is the breather we need before the showpiece “The Race Is About to Begin” kicks in. The album’s longest track (at 7 minutes and 15 seconds) is black midi at their most uninhibited and unflinching. It is a veritable sensory assault that illustrates the band’s flair for the theatrical. Greep’s voice, Simpson’s percussion and Akinnibi’s sax again come to the fore in the show tune-y “The Defence.” A sense of hopelessness permeates the album closer “27 Questions,” which invites us to a living wake for an actor named Freddie Frost who delivers a final monologue before blowing up on stage. And all the audience can do is laugh it off, laugh in the face of mankind’s endless despair, and laugh at the absurdity of life. Freddie intends to ask 27 questions, but explodes before he can reach the milestone. The abrupt ending only attests to the playful approach of black midi.

Chalk Hellfire up in the win column. This is as electrifying a statement of anarchy and unrest can get. Though listening to the album may often be challenging, it is never not engaging, as the songs here deliver some of the most concise, brutal and jagged blows the British outfit have dealt so far in their career.

black midi’s Hellfire is available for streaming here. The album is available in vinyl, CD and cassette formats here.

Prahlad Srihari is a film and music writer based in Bengaluru.

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