New Beginnings

After riding out a career-jeopardising storm of false starts, line-up changes and cancelled tours, Cambridge six-piece Black Country, New Road return with a renewed sense of drive and purpose - and a fantastic new album, for good measure. Prog catches up with the band to discuss third studio effort Forever Howlong, and how leaving your comfort zone and facing down adversity ultimately bring great reward.

- Jeremy Allen

The old Nietzschean aphorism “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” has certainly been proven by Black Country, New Road over the last seven years. The Cambridge six-piece have weathered their fair share of tribulations since forming out of the ashes of their previous band in 2018, most notably when singer and BCNR cynosure Isaac Wood exited just as they were readying their second album, Ants From Up There, in 2022. The tour they'd planned had to be jettisoned, making that two cancelled tours in as many years. Somehow, 2025 marks the first time they'll be going on the road with a brand-new album.

“We've never toured a studio record before,” confirms drummer Charlie Wayne, calling from his childhood bedroom in Cambridge where he’s returned to celebrate his mum’s 60th. “We've toured extensively, but never with any material that had a proper release. The first album came out during lockdown, and then for the second one, we didn’t really go that far into the touring schedule for obvious reasons.”

As a stopgap, in 2023, a Wood-less BCNR released a record full of new material, Live At Bush Hall, complete with a compilation film of the best of the three nights, which you can now find on YouTube. The album showcased the reconfigured unit defiantly singing ‘BCNR friends forever/Look at what we did together’ on the opener Up Song, which can certainly be read as coming out fighting. Behind the bravado, though, guitarist Luke Mark paints a picture of near-petrification behind the scenes.