Black Midi
Hellfire
ROUGH TRADE
Black Midi continues to be a genre atom smasher on their third album, Hellfire. On each successive record, the group has refused to settle on just rock, jazz, electronic, or punk music. Their 2019 debut Schlagenheim was constructed from an unhinged series of improvisational jam sessions, while 2021’s Cavalcade then shifted to more closely considered prog-rock night terrors. Black Midi never sticks to one sound, and that’s part of what’s so appealing or confounding about them, depending on who you’re talking to.
On Hellfire, the London group embodies the phrases yelped by vocalist/guitarist Geordie Greep at the beginning of the record: “There’s always something… an odd twitch, hearing loss, a ringing noise, new flesh.” The title track prominently features an ominous pipe organ, which is reminiscent of the soundtracks for deadly Roman gladiatorial games. This type of tension ratchets up throughout the album’s 38-minute runtime while influences drop on the listener in waves, with bits of early Genesis, Captain Beefheart, and ’70s jazz-fusion icons Magma tumbling over each other as each track is revealed in full.
The concept for the album is set during a war with vivid military characters serving as the nervous mouthpieces of each track. The subject matter of each song is on the seedier side—“The Defence” and “Dangerous Liaisons” are from the perspective of a brothel owner and hired killer, respectively. World War I and Dickensian poetry feature prominently as influences for Greep, and his delivery remains truly alien. “Still” is the most melodic the dark album ever gets as it contorts and changes shape.
Hellfire is full of hallucinogenic scenes where jazz, prog, electronic, and punk pretzel around each other until it looks like one musical gordian knot that can be extremely hard to penetrate for a new listener. Hellfire takes another step toward traditional songwriting even with an improvisational base. It’s a modern mutation on a traditional strain of ’70s rock and jazz jamming, but Black Midi remain mostly appealing three albums into their ascendant career. It’ll be intriguing to see what they mutate into for their fourth effort.
