Black Midi Announce Third Album 'Hellfire', Share Lead Track Welcome To Hell
Tuesday, 10 May 2022
Written by Jon Stickler
Photo: Atiba Jefferson
Black Midi have shared details of their third album in as many years.
'Hellfire' will arrive on July 15 via Rough Trade Records and comprise nine tracks penned by the experimental rockers in isolation in London shortly after the release of their 2021 sophomore effort, 'Cavalcade'.
The group's guitarist Geordie Greep said in a statement: "If 'Cavalcade' was a drama, 'Hellfire' is like an epic action film." As a preview, head below to check out the record's lead track, Welcome To Hell, which comes paired with a Gustaf Holtenäs-directed video.
Spiralling and hectic, the song features horn fanfares, a precise rhythmic arrangement, drum breaks, and chaotic guitar lines. A press release said:
"[It] tells the story of a shell shocked soldier's excess and military discharge. The setting is a far-off military campaign – an exotic coastal town, commandeered by the invading army and swarming with soldiers. It is nighttime; erratic men rush up and down the strip in various stages of inebriation, neon signs light up the bars, and out of their open doors waft wisps of indeterminate smoke. Deafening howls of motorcycle engines linger all around, accompanied by a medley of languages – albeit, all slurred, coarse, hoarse and evasive of any true emotion and he's unable to handle the world in which he finds himself."
"Almost everyone depicted is a kind of scumbag,” guitarist Greep explained. "Almost everything I write is from a true thing, something I experienced and exaggerated and wrote down. I don’t believe in Hell, but all that old world folly is great for songs, I’ve always loved movies and anything else with a depiction of Hell: Dante’s Inferno. When Homer goes to Hell in The Simpsons. There’s a robot Hell in Futurama. Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Jewish writer who portrays a Satan interfering in people’s lives. There’s loads!"
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