Black Midi Blew Meanjin Away At The Powerhouse
Review by Will Smerdon
Just last month iconic London noise rock outfit black midi blew us away in the most appropriate venue for the job, the Brisbane Powerhouse.
Since the release of their first studio album back in 2019, black midi has been quickly becoming a mainstay in the post--rock wheelhouse, blending head banging rhythms with madman’s lyricism delivered in a vehicle of discordant melodies driven at high speed into a brick wall of noise. With 3 studio albums under their belt now, black midi boasts a strong backlog of tracks covering themes from polluted drinking water to acid reflux demons and of course, Hell itself. On their latest record Hellfire black midi infuses essences of indie rock and jazz into the mix to create what is most deranged record yet. Heading up the Powerhouse main stage alongside multi-talented Meanjin artist Naomi Blacklock as part of Ohm Festival this performance wasn’t one to be missed.
As darkness fell upon Meanjin the music began, with Naomi Blacklock kicking off the night with a chaotic set of noise laden beats, backdropped by eerie unsettling performance art, masterfully setting the mood for tonight’s festivities.
As the lights dimmed once more and the crowd erupted in cheers black midi took to the stage and dove straight into the light yet dystopic Speedway shortly followed by Welcome to Hell, a perfect warm up to the set before launching into 953, a ridiculously headbangable song and the intro track from their debut album Schlagenheim.
Like an oasis in a desert of noise black midi followed up with Still, a track that sounds like a fun beach day that hides themes of hard breakups just beneath the sonic surface. So, to lighten the sombre mood black midi hit us with Eat Men Eat, a delightfully easy-going song about enjoying a feast with some miners, and also having your stomach acid harvested by acid reflux demons to make red wine. This tasty little concept is wrapped up neatly in some of their most anxiety inducing instrumentation in their discography with horns and strings moving in and out and all around your perspective backed by frantic drumming and twangy guitars. This song was insane to see translated live and at times it was like the band members were attempting to murder their instruments live on stage with the sounds they were able to pull out of them.
Giving us some modicum of reprieve from the ocean of noise that threatened to drown us black midi graced us with the super jazzy Slow, featuring wailing saxophones, frenzied bass strumming, and a fever pitch of an ending crescendo that threatens to drive listeners insane just by hearing it. Transitioning from this the band tore into an electrifying cover of The Chemical Brothers’ club banger Galvanise followed by a seamless medley of covers spanning from the opening of 21st Century Schizoid Man to the leading riff of Back in Black all completed with black midis trademark chaos.
To cap off the night the band finished with one of their all-time classics DT, MI. To see this song live was an out of body experience, as the song ramped up to the peak the crowd went wild with screams and shouts as we moshed to one of the hardest guitar riffs in music. As we filtered out of the powerhouse and into the cool autumn air, we reminisced over the chaos we just bore witness too. Acts like this don’t come by too often and we can’t wait to see what black midi has in store for us next.