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Jul 14, 2022Humanity isn’t exactly humane in the songs on “Hellfire,” the caustic, exhilarating third album — a masterpiece — by the English band black midi. Each song on “Hellfire” is a whirlwind of virtuosity and structure, an idiom-hopping decathlon of meter shifts, barbed harmonies and arrangements that can veer anywhere at any moment.
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Jul 12, 2022It takes immense skill to know what to keep while being one step ahead of the modern musical landscape, and Hellfire accomplishes both.
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Jul 11, 2022Though many of the band's distinct hallmarks show face – heavier than ever, even – somehow their latest record sounds miraculously and hideously new, proving their aversion to any mindless repetition.
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Jul 14, 2022Sheer breath of freshness and youth.
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Jul 14, 2022Though it mostly lacks the direct punchiness and instant gratification of an album like Schlagenheim, it provides a unique musical escapade that dashes deftly between genres and the depths of the human experience like a charging bull. Black midi isn’t here to charm you or to prove anything—they just want to take you to hell and back.
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Sep 8, 2022With their third LP, Black Midi continue to put out adventurous and challenging music that keeps listeners on the tips of their toes.
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Jul 18, 2022‘Hellfire’ is at once goofy and high brow. A volcanic eruption of serious silliness.
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Jul 18, 2022Hellfire is a superb and strangely seductive album that adds another gem to the crown of a band who are fast becoming one of the very best of their era. Mystifying, terrifying, essential listening.
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Jul 18, 2022Best listened to as a whole, Hellfire is as challenging and unsettling as it is exhilarating. About as sui generis as it’s possible to get in 2022.
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Jul 14, 2022Although less esoteric than its predecessor ‘Cavalcade’, ‘Hellfire’ is a fiercely experimental record that sees black midi teeter back and forth on a crumbling precipice, halfway between unhinged madness and art rock precision.
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Jul 14, 2022‘Hellfire’ delivers more musical thrills and about-turns per minute than few other records we’ve heard this year. Sounding more assured of their creative agility than ever before, ‘Hellfire’ is the work of a very special group of alchemists.
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Jul 11, 2022Hellfire is designed to be heard as an album, rather than chopped into playlists—but it’s 180 degrees away from the dourness of the usual prog-adjacent music. The album rewards digging beneath its surface and influences, as it engages with rock’s history while simultaneously taking it in imaginative new directions.
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MojoJul 7, 2022Hellfire, for all its sporadic intensity, is less harsh than previous Black Midi records. [Aug 2022, p.83]
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The WireJul 7, 2022Hellfire confidently establishes Black Midi as a distinct musical personality. [Jul 2022, p.44]
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Jul 7, 2022They’ve managed to make tonal inconsistencies feel like an actual consistency, rather than being a jarring and detracting experience. They’ve wrangled chaos into submission, and currently sound like no other band out there. [Aug 2022, p.34]
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Jul 14, 2022If the intellect on Hellfire is feverish, the emotional temperature often dips to morgue levels; their music is better equipped to comment on emotion than to feel it, or express it. They continue to get over, as they always do, on pure conviction, riding the knife’s edge between clinical precision and crazed abandon.
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Aug 11, 20222021's Cavalcade found the group exploring a lushly orchestrated avant-prog sound, switching between spiky, angular workouts and softer, more patient compositions. Hellfire moves further in this direction, but with a greater sense of showmanship.
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Jul 15, 2022The trio are at the top of their game, and if they haven’t grown out of their disposition for laboriously concocted indulgence, then they have at least worked out how to synthesise it towards more entertaining ends.
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Jul 15, 2022Hellfire is a decent album, one where on at least half the tracks come from the Black Midi we remember, always on the cusp of something brilliant and humbling and confounding in the best way possible. On the other half though, they are lost in their own precision, echoing their better work and confusing ability with purpose.
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Jul 15, 2022While still manic in its tempo-changing lunacy, Hellfire is more approachable and organised, as the production by sometime Björk engineer Marta Salogni asserts a certain order amid the vari-speed chaos.
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Jul 14, 2022It’s noisy, jolting and filled with gruesome imagery, but somehow arid and remote, music presented with a self-satisfied smirk (“idiots are infinite, thinking men numbered”, drawls Greep at one point) that prevents wholehearted commitment. Maybe it takes on a different, more direct power live.
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Rolling StoneJul 7, 2022black midi take a serious detour into pretentious overreach here. [Jul - Aug 2022, p.120]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 34 out of 38
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Mixed: 2 out of 38
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Negative: 2 out of 38
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Jul 16, 2022
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Jul 6, 2023
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Apr 27, 2023