And if we're on a burnin' starship
The escape pods filled with your friends
Your childhood film photos
There's no room for me to go
Oh, I'd wait there
Float with the wreckage
Fashion a longsword
Traverse the Milky Way
Tryna get home to you
And you bring some piece of the stars

From anyone else's mouth, the above would feel overdone. These are the words of a nerdy, obsessive shut-in. Someone who lives in a world of his own creation. A Walter Mitty, a hero just waiting for his chance to shine. But his time will never come, and he'll instead spend his life wondering what could have been.

But Isaac Woods somehow toes the line. The above turns from a pitiful display of longing to a grand declaration of unrequited love. This is the genius of Black Country, New Road's sophomore album; the marriage of erratic, angular riffs and bizarre scenarios with the drudgery of daily life. The intergalactic journey of a starship is naught without the childhood photos, the threads of ones life.

There is a pensive mood throughout the entire album. Intense emotional catharsis gives way to muted grief, a tsunami draining back to the sea. It's the grief of lost futures. The sudden destruction of plans and hopes and dreams, presented not in the big moments, but the background drudgery of the day to day.

I know you're scared
Well, I'm scared too
Oh, that every time I try to makе lunch
For anyone else, in my hеad
I end up dreaming of you
And you come to me

One of the most depressing things about growing up is realising that not everything works out. You let your dreams go, one by one. Sure things are never certain. Unlikely things happen all the time. This isn't sad, it's melancholic, and there is a difference. Sadness is flat, but melancholy contains within it hope. Despite everything, this is a hopeful album. It's raw and honest and unapologetic, and that gives it power. We all have our own set of lost futures, those that felt so certain, and yet faded away with time. And yet, we persist.