Fans of Black Midi will detect familiar ideas in the music of former bassist Cameron Picton’s new band, though they’re expressed with a different vocabulary. My New Band Believe’s self-titled debut sticks mostly to acoustic instruments, with spacious arrangements that place a greater focus on sudden shifts in mood and tempo, and Picton picking up guitar and lead vocals (his voice is more pleasant than Black Midi frontman Geordie Greep’s).
The eight songs on My New Band Believe feel fluid, almost improvised, and vary wildly in length, from two to eight-and-a-half minutes apiece. They’re restless, reflecting an equal degree of love for British folk and the more experimental strains of classical music, even venturing into Beatles-esque pop but never staying there for more than a few minutes at a time.
Picton takes on the perspectives of fictional characters throughout the album. “Target Practice,” for one, is deceptively sweet, the story of an assassin’s plans for revenge accompanied by a string section and a choir, as the song’s antihero serenades his victim: “Don’t cry, you deserve this.”
More often, the lyrics take a backseat to the arrangements, which explore a vast range of dynamics and noise. The tense dissonance of “Heart of Darkness,” in which cellos, cymbals, and gongs seem to battle each other, speaks louder than anything Picton sings. Elsewhere, the strings on “Love Story,” an unguarded dedication to a lost partner that slowly moves from domestic bliss—“You want potatoes or rice tonight?/Pick up some onions/I’m making dinner”—to hints of tragedy, become choppier and more cacophonous as the song progresses.
The excitement of working with a new group of musicians, including members of fellow Londoners Caroline, comes through on My New Band Believe. Picton came up with the band name and some of his song ideas while falling ill during a Chinese tour with Black Midi, which might explain the album’s persistently unsettling mood, but a feeling of freedom, of rejecting expectations, is what comes through the clearest on My New Band Believe.
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