Black Country, New Road releasing covers of ABBA, Adele and more on vinyl

Black Country, New Road's February debut album For the first time made Rough Trade's top 100 albums of 2021, and the top 20 albums on this year's list will be celebrated by exclusive vinyl pressings via Rough Trade.

As well as exlusive pressings of albums by St. Vincent, Little Simz, Arlo Parks, Dry Cleaning, The Weather Station, IDLES, Japanese Breakfast, Madlib and more, Rough Trade will release Black Country, New Road's debut album as well as a new EP titled Never Again, which sees the band cover songs by ABBA, MGMT and Adele.

On covering ABBA's "Mamma Mia", the band said, ""Mamma Mia" - easily our favourite cover on the compilation. A tight and punchy rendition of a certified banger. It’s a song we all take for granted but when you go to cover it you realise how amazing every piece of the puzzle is. A joy to perform."

They added of the second ABBA cover, ""Chiquitita" - an unintentionally haunting first take of a song that some may say didn’t need to be covered."

Regarding their MGMT cover, BC,NR said, ""Time To Pretend" - was recorded a day after we released the album. We were doing a live stream of some improvised music to celebrate the album’s release. Improv tends to be quite long winded and frequently pretty boring, so we thought that we’d start the set with a song that we all knew and loved. The song itself is fitting description of the lifestyles we have all since gone on to lead - to differing degrees of success."

Of their Adele cover, they added, "Covering "Someone Like You" was a pretty natural decision for all of us. Though for some reason, the response to both the decision and subsequent cover were met by unanimous criticism from both friends and management alike. For us, it has been a sobering lesson on knowing how to put your foot down in favour of a creative decision in the face of overwhelming resistance."