British art-rock band Black Country, New Road are already getting ready to follow up their 2021 debut album For The First Time with a new one called Ants From Up There. We’ve already heard the tracks “Chaos Space Marine,” “Bread Song,” and “Concorde,” and now we’re getting a gorgeous, slow-building nine-minute epic called “Snow Globes.” As drummer Charlie Wayne explains:

“Snow Globes” was one of the songs which had existed before we wrote the majority of the songs on AFUT. Though it’s a pretty good representation of the musical world we wanted to explore on the album at large. Rather than writing a song with a number of distinct sections we wanted to see what we could do with one continuous riff. It was a real exploration in trying to create something maximalist whilst limiting ourselves with minimal musical choices.

Because the melodic instruments are all playing the riff in unison, “Snow Globes” left the drums with an interesting opportunity. The drums don’t sit separately from the rest of the band on Snow Globes, but we wanted to use them in a way that we hadn’t in the past. The initial idea was to feel like the drums were recorded for a completely separate track. They were meant to be totally arrhythmic and just sort of bubble below the surface — like at the end of “White Ferrari.” As the song progressed the drums still occupy a slightly different sound world, but because the rest of the band is playing in such a syncopated style, the drums were given a space to disregard rhythm and be completely expressive.

Listen below.

Ants From Up There is out 2/4 on Ninja Tune.