Has anything ever changed? Ever, at all?
New duo on the block cook up something special with feisty punk-rock debut.
OVERVIEW —->>
Uncompromising duo BIG SPECIAL meld together lacerating lyricism with an synth-assertive backdrop that mark them as a pairing to keep a close eye on this year. Their seething all-encompassing alternative works sets their sights on exploring the bleak and beautiful honesty of a nation in rapid decline.
Now – – among anticipation, today marks the release of their debut: POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES.
The well has all been dried up when it comes to shouty punk bands shouting on their soapboxes to no avail. But with the Midlands duo here, it’s a different shade of dark. Monochrome even. There’s a bluesy depth here; not spared in the slightest as Joe Hicklin croons and tempers about with poetic lyricism both in frailty and exasperation. Callum Moloney keeps the beat in the street gutters, as Brummies’ Peaky Blinders meets a broken world and doomed songs fill the skies.
Disenfranchised to the system where nothing changes: t’s a syrup that sticks to the back of your throat if you let it. POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES is the remedy to wash it down with. It’s a reminder that we do matter. Regardless if we’re told anything different.
SONG-TO-SONG —->>
Steely slit-eyed opener BLACK COUNTRY GOTHIC is the album bellows – searing the fires and setting the swagger. Four-to-the-floor drums blasts into Hicklin’s poetic induction – “they felt then, so I’ve heard / under their thick black blanket of industry. Now they kneel and pray at the steel altar / A hopeless congregation of a Godless mass.”
The leading pre-release singles shine all on their own: DESPERATE BREAKFAST is a blast of smarmy synth clangers as SHITHOUSE ponders going out in a blaze of glory when you finally go over the edge from a nation in decline – “I thought I was getting better / I must think I’m fucking Cinderella.” Pensive social commentator of THIS HERE AIN’T WATER offers a aching reprisal as Hicklin howls and aches in full vocal gusto before he renounces, “Force-fed and fenced in / It’s like a cult out here.“
BLACK DOG / WHITE HORSE is a brooding make-shift ballad topped off with a country-western chorus of triumph while iLL balances said hope like a seal with a beach ball – “I need something to believe in / Not just visions of bold beasts and ill pups.” BUTCHER’S BIN i’s another rousing feather to the duo’s growing bow of alternative experimenting sounds, despite finding it difficult to get past that jarring synth squelch. Suppose that’s the point.
“The working class might as well be completely fucking invisible. It’s all wank“, Hicklin ensues to NME earlier this year, “I just wish it would all burn down so we could start again.”
You could argue that DUST OFF / START AGAIN is the pairings’ neoliberal anthem of change for this. Hicklin is at his most powerful with his words here – “I’ve got a ten million reasons to dance today / But I’ve got no bricks and mortar / Tired of drawing out the day to make the next one shorter / I want to see a different colour / But can’t paint on what ain’t my bricks and mortar.” The album meanwhile, takes a poignant turn nearing the end. Paved with ambient post-rock piano, FOR THE BIRDS sees them at their most imitate and their most gorgeous, as he vows to muster on into the future – no matter how unpredictable it will be. It then swan-dives into DiG! a triumphant closer of alt-rock as horns perch and pray for you to keep going.
manvmusic.com 
Leave a comment