Schlagenheim is the debut studio album by English rock band Black Midi, released on 21 June 2019 through Rough Trade Records. The band recorded the majority of the album over a five-day period with producer Dan Carey at his studio in South London. Throughout its recording, the band made the conscious decision not to replicate their live set, embellishing their four-piece setup with synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, banjos and organs. Schlagenheim received praise from music critics, being nominated for the 2019 Mercury Prize and appearing inside the top-ten of several year-end lists. It also peaked at number 43 on the UK Albums Chart. Composition On Schlagenheim, black midi craft "cathartic" experimental rock, yielding a "surprising amalgam" of jazz fusion, math rock, noise rock and post-punk. In 2022, drummer Morgan Simpson debunked an often-repeated rumour that the album's songs stemmed from spontaneous jam sessions: "I think there was this idea in people’s heads when we came to record the first record that it took us the same amount of time to write the actual song itself that it did to record it. That just was never true." Before settling on the title Schlagenheim, vocalist and guitarist Geordie Greep wanted to call the album Hellfire, which ultimately became the name of their third studio album. Reception At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, Schlagenheim received a score of 82, based on 20 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Paul Glynn of the BBC claimed that the album "has been described by critics as everything from thrilling to frustrating." Schlagenheim was praised for the technical proficiency of the musicianship, with Paste, Pitchfork, Tiny Mix Tapes and The Guardian singling out Simpson's drumming as especially good. In a positive review for Paste, Steven Edelstone says that Greep and Kwasniewski-Kelvin are "two of our most inventive contemporary guitarists" but that one of the few faults of Schlagenheim is that it doesn't "showcase Morgan Simpson’s frenzied drumming to its fullest extent." Edelstone praises Schlagenheim's unpredictability stating "Schlagenheim surprises at every turn, never settling into a predictable flow" later comparing it to Trout Mask Replica opining that like that album "it doesn’t always sound aurally pleasing, and it’s often tough to keep up, but it rewards those who try." Edelstone says that Schlagenheim is "one of the best albums [he had] ever heard" and "a masterpiece". In a mixed review