BIG BIG TRAIN : THE SECOND BRIGHTEST STAR

1. The Second Brightest Star
2. Haymaking
3. Skylon
4. London Stone
5. The Passing Widow
6. The Leaden Stour
7. Terra Australis Incognita
   Grimlore :
8. Brooklands Sequence : On The Racing Line / Brooklands
9. London Plane Sequence : Turner On The Thames / London Plane
10. The Gentlemen's Reprise

Label : English Electric Recordings

Length : 70:27

Release Date : June 23, 2017

Review (Louder) : There are few greater delights than driving through the English countryside on a summer's day with Big Big Train on full blast. Their music shines with full-hearted fervour. Perhaps it was an awareness of this that led David Longdon, Greg Spawton and co to drop this unexpected delight around the summer solstice. 'Unexpected' since most of us were still reeling from the mythic magic of April's Grimspound, the companion piece to the profound and gigantic Folklore. Releasing album after album is typically a bad sign, but Big Big Train have torn up the rule book. .Brightest Star shines gloriously, casting light on the journey so far, guiding the listener into new territory and giving us all the melody, bombast and nostalgia we've grown to expect. Thematically, this new offering is a grand farewell. .Brightest Star brings together both previously unreleased tracks and reworked tunes from the last two albums. This latter section, Grimlore, concentrates on amplifying Folklore's biggies, Brooklands and London Plane, with instrumentals and themes from Grimspound. The effect is mesmerising, allowing London Plane to achieve a shimmering vastness that had been partially concealed by the original's musical decisions. If the Folklore version was like a taste of a Turner masterpiece, now you truly feel you're out on the Thames Estuary with the Old Master, painting The Fighting Temeraire. Big Big Train have said that .Brightest Star signals the end of a trajectory set off by The Underfall Yard in 2009. We've become familiar with their delight in an England just out of grasp, of butterflies and burial grounds and Liverpudlian forgers. Thematically, this new offering is a grand farewell. Skylon captures the excitement of the New Elizabethan age of space and post-war possibility, while the title track takes us deep into dreams of adventure and childhood wonder. But there's another reason to be excited. If Big Big Train's recent albums have shown both their growing confidence in their own sound as well as a desire to explore the gifts of new additions like strings player and co-vocalist Rachel Hall, .Brightest Star holds clues to fresh possibilities. The Passing Widow blends the band's characteristic gift for melody and sentiment with a confident simplicity. The chord sequences could be Britten or Butterworth writing classical folk songs. If nothing else, it shows how Big Big Train can create transporting music without any need for complication. As they say goodbye to the latest phase of their evolution, this might just signal a way ahead. Either way, the journey so far has been astonishing and we say thank you for that. Here's to the next step.

Review (ProgArchives) : Having been blown away by the sheer beauty of 'Grimspound' earlier this year, I certainly wasn't expecting another album just yet, so when I received an email telling me about this I was incredibly excited. The album features forty minutes of new songs and instrumentals which explore landscapes, rivers and meeting places and take the listener on voyages of discovery across the world and to the stars. Alongside the new tracks, there is a bonus selection of thirty minutes of music where songs from the last two albums are presented in extended format. I know I shouldn't be surprised at just how mature this music sounds, given that I have known the band for some twenty-five years now, but it continues to delight and entrance me to see how this band have grown and changed. Nick D'Virgilio is probably my favourite drummer in modern progressive music, and I have always loved watching him play, yet with BBT one doesn't notice the complexity of what he is doing unless one listens for it, as he is so much at one with the rest of the band. The use of so many different instruments within an octet allows them to layer sounds that would be beyond many others, but the pastoral progressive sound they create never overpowers David Longdon's rich vocals. They are a very English band in so many ways, and not just when they are singing about London, as they evoke a feeling not of the current age, but of times gone past when the world was a simpler place. But, there is never anything simple about the music they are performing, but it never feels heavy handed or over the top. It is fresh and bright, never leaden or conspiring to show what everyone can do just because they're proggers, but rather the music always seems perfect and on point, with all the musicians doing exactly what is required. This can mean that they sometimes provide accompaniment to others as opposed to demanding a lead role, or may even sit out sections of songs if that is what is right for the music. Big Big Train will feature at the top of many music critic's albums of the year, and that there may be a doubt only about whether it is this or 'Grimspound' shows just how important the band has become. Truly wonderful, in so many ways.