BLACK MIDI
Hellfire ROUGH TRADE
Timely missive from the nine circles courtesy of London art-rock headspinners.
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.