At the start of 2022, Black Country, New Road were the hottest new band on the planet.

They’d released a juggernaut debut album the year before in For the First Time, and less than 12 months later had slated their seismic follow up Ants from Up There to drop on February 4 of that year (it still holds a rating of 92/100 on Metacritic).

Then four days before its release, lead singer, lyricist and beating heart of the band Isaac Wood departed, citing mental health reasons. It’s the sort of blow most bands are unlikely to recover from.

But most bands aren’t Black Country, New Road. Without adding anyone new, they regrouped, and these are days fronted by their three female multi-instrumentalists sharing vocal duties. One of which is Tyler Hyde, daughter of Underworld’s Karl Hyde, whose own band went through a similarly huge stylistic shift after two records. One imagines Papa Karl may have had some input in their decision to carry on.

As first heard on 2023’s Live at Bush Hall, this isn’t quite the same band — in  fact, the sound is starkly different. Somewhat disappointingly, they no longer perform any of the tracks they made their name on, and the wild abandon of post-rock crescendos has been replaced by something akin to baroque folk and chamber pop.

It didn’t quite work across the nearly hourlong comeback album Forever Howlong last year, but live in concert all those epic, proggy tendencies are a wonder to behold. A throughline between the instrumental canvases Wood once ranted over and the technical, thoughtful arrangements of the new material is suddenly obvious again.

Emerging onstage to the epic strains of Petula Clark’s 1964 hit Downtown was a masterstroke to begin with, before mandolinist Georgia Ellery welcomed us with Two Horses.

With a Palestinian flag draped over her keys making their politics clear, May Kershaw followed with The Big Spin, although it was largely a collaboration between all three vocalists. It wasn’t long before Hyde followed suit singing Socks and Dancers in succession, and by then the instrument swapping had commenced with Ellery moving to violin and saxophonist Lewis Evans now on bass clarinet.

Something of a miniature six-piece orchestra, the angelic choral harmonies of Besties was only bettered by the beautiful crescendos of For the Cold Country and Nancy Tries to Take the Night (the latter arguably track of the night).

None of which prepared us for the awesomely catchy cover of Big Star’s The Ballad of El Goodo, which stood out for its far more direct approach to songwriting than their own songs, or conversely the whole band taking up tenor recorders on the new album’s title track Forever Howlong, in something akin to a showstopping finale.

Surprisingly, Black Country chose not to embrace the Power Station’s bespoke visual set up using the inner wall as most acts have. And they didn’t need to. The same band they may be, but this rainbow collective is a more colourful incarnation and with so much happening onstage it’d be a crime to turn away from the action. It might not turn out to be as world-beating a reinvention as, say, early Pink Floyd or Fleetwood Mac (or even Underworld), whose lineup changes literally altered the history of popular music, but it belongs to that lineage.

Black Country weren’t the only act sharing three vocalists on the night, as one of Perth’s best bands Gap Year delivered a superb set in support. Offering up tracks from last year’s record In Light, they recalled the indie jangle of Real Estate and Beach Fossils at times. At their best as on Bon Soir (lifted from 2021 debut album Flat Out) there’s a timelessness akin to the Go-Betweens crossed with Joy Division; a uniquely breakneck Australian take on post-punk’s traditions. Go buy a Gap Year t-shirt.