The Blackchords: A Thin Line

Melbourne band the Blackchords already have a popular self-titled album to their name. They have a strong following of fans and have been able to tour Europe and North America. The band however, didn’t have much time writing together. Their first album was a thrown together with songs Nick Milwright, the lead singer, had written over the past couple of years. Throwing these songs out there that they didn’t particularly care for, the Blackchords decided to hire a house near Lorne in Victoria and stay there for a week to write their new album A Thin Line.
They wanted to make a whole cohesive album, one that tells a story. Nick Milwright says that the albums they all love take you on a journey.
“Whether it’s a concept album or not.” He says, “You feel it’s that these albums are pieces of music as a whole and we set out to do something like that.” It is through this that A Thin Line has its true success.
The album is about walking on a tightrope towards where you want to get in a world of distractions.
“We wanted to make music.” Milwright says “but were constantly bombarded with TV screens, billboards, Twitter and Facebook, just robbing us of time.”
A Thin Line is a story of trying to push away these distractions, walk through it, find your own feet and waking up to what you’re doing in this world. This feeling resonates throughout the entire album.
The first song of the album is the title track and it starts with a soothing bass line in an atmospheric space and Milwright’s effortlessly passionate voice. The song then builds with majestic sounding synthesizers only to slow down. It pulls and pushes you while Milwright sings you a story.
The Blackchords have been successful in creating an album that takes you on a journey and works as a whole. They have achieved this while still allowing songs to stand out on their own. Oh No has an organic mysticism like As Night Falls but As Night Falls makes you want to sing along and Oh No makes you want to dance. Meanwhile Dance Dance Dance demands the inner teenager inside of you, to flail your arms and jump around.
Songs like Kitchen and Into the Unknown are gently expansive, a subtle guitar and visions of sparkling nights in dark spaces. These songs give the album complexity and give the up beat songs context. A Thin Line is a brave album as it pulls you in and pushes you away with rhythm, pace and the space it positions you in.
Milwright says he wants people to connect with this album.
“In our first show in Paris some girls had flown over from Norway to see us.” He says, “They had this connection with our music and since France is only a few countries away, they had to fly over and see us. To know our music has resonated with someone, that’s what we want and that’s what we aim for.”
A Thin Line is human, emotive and a reflective album. It is not specifically individual for the band and the journey it takes the listener on will resonate with most.