Black Country, New Road vocalist Isaac Wood announces departure from the band

Black Country, New Road have announced that frontman Isaac Wood has left the band with immediate effect.

The band, whose second album ‘Ants From Up There’ is due out this week (February 4), will continue as a six-piece, but their upcoming shows are cancelled. The news comes after the band postponed a UK and Irish tour late last year due to illness.

In a message shared by Black Country, New Road on behalf of Wood, the vocalist said: “I have bad news which is that I have been feeling sad and afraid too. And I have tried to make this not true but it is the kind of sad and afraid feeling that makes it hard to play guitar and sing at the same time.

“Together we have been writing songs and then performing them, which at times has been an incredible doing, but more now everything happens that I am feeling not so great and it means from now I won’t be a member of the group anymore.

Wood added: “To be clear: this is completely in spite of six of the greatest people I know, who were and are wonderful in a sparkling way. If you are reading this maybe you would have seen some of that. It has been a great pleasure and I would like to say the words ‘Thank You’ to everyone.”

In their own statement, the six remaining band members confirmed that they will carry on as Black Country, New Road, and are already working on new music. The band’s upcoming London headline show at the Roundhouse next week, a US tour in February and further UK dates in April are all cancelled.

The band wrote: “Although Isaac won’t be part of the group any longer, the rest of us will be continuing to make music together as Black Country, New Road. In fact, we’ve already starting working on it.

“The things we’ll miss about working with Isaac are too many and various to list here, but by listening to the music we made together, I’m sure you’ll understand at least a few of them. It’d be difficult to overstate how much our experiences as a group have affected us. In fact, it’s difficult to say anything at all coherent about what we’ve managed to do. But it has certainly been the greatest privilege to do it all together, as seven friends.”

Black Country, New Road released their Mercury Prize-nominated 2020 debut ‘For The First Time’ last February, with their second effort due on February 4, 2022 via Ninja Tune.

NME‘s five-star review of ‘For The First Time’ called the album “an utterly mesmerising debut,” adding: “Their peak may be years away yet, but this is still some of the most exciting music you’ll hear until then; I’m not sure what more you could ask of a debut.”

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