Black Midi don’t look like fans of the classic whodunit, but the red herrings dropped in Hellfire – their third album in as many years – would suggest otherwise. Indeed, the head scratching induced by the title track’s flirtation with country music and the nod to tropicália on Dangerous Liaison sound as if they’ve stumbled in from the wrong album, but their explosion into skittering beats, free jazz flourishes and time signatures that veer this way and that soon reassure as to who the authors really are.
Building on their previous two releases, Hellfire is a dense and labyrinthine album that takes a microscope to the nastier side of life thanks to the narration of a variety of characters described by the band as “scumbags”. Sugar/Tzu has the feel of Satan’s own Big Band, as elsewhere 27 Questions evokes an infernal vision of the Kit Kat Club. They say the Devil has the best tunes, and here they’re all played at once.
An uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing experience, Hellfire nonetheless mirrors and soundtracks the bedlam and chaos in which we find ourselves at the close of this century’s first quarter.
