CD Review  

big big train
 "gathering speed"

Rating 98%

reviewed by "Baldy" O'Mara

A wise man once wrote that "Big Big Train are one". Fuck knows what he meant, but after listening to this CD I can understand where he was coming from. This CD, "Gathering Speed", is the laid-back coast Proggers 4th proper album, and the second since the huge public groundswell convinced the boys to carry on making their own electric brand of Prog. It is also their virgin concept album, so with this, they hope to finally break into the big big time (ha ha). 

"Gathering Speed is set in the summer of 1940 and tells the story of a fighter pilot whose Spitfire is seen to fall out of the sky, shot down during a combat patrol." they say, and judging by album opener, "High Tide, Last Stand" replete with mind blasting Spitfire flypast (I'm sure some bright spark will email me and say it's a Hurricane or sommat, but...) they're not wrong. Not only that, but there's also seven minutes of Coast-Progging heaven, borrowing touches from IQ, Jadis and dare I say it, early Genesis. But it's on the second track "Fighter Command" where the big change becomes apparent. New vocalist Sean Pilkins shines thru on this 11 minute dogfight of an epic, with some lovely restrained guitar parts interworked with soothing vocals from Coastprogger babe Laura Murch in a "Floydian-Hitchensian" mode. 

Hot on the tail of that, like some dirty German murderer, comes "The Road Much Further On", another mellower track that highlights Seans voice, but also Gregory's wonderful fretwork and backing vocality. This brings the story on to where the pilots family learn about his having been shot down over enemy territory. The instrumental "Sky Flying on Fire" flies out of the sun with a very Genesis twang to it's bow. Which is a good thing, by God. As it whizzes past, it embarks upon a more IQish Jazzy flight path. Then quiet bird song, chased by adrenalin fuelled breathing, announce the arrival of the enigmatic "Pell Mell" which drives the listener forward, and in the story tells of the pilots view on the dogfight, and yet, further down the line, of the family's dive towards self-implosion caused by his death.

"Powder Monkey" and "Gathering Speed" wrap up the album, and the story in magnificient form, with the rhythm section of drummerboy Steve Hughes and bassist Andy Poole fighting it out with ivory tinkler Ian Cooper picking up scraps.

With this quality album under their belts, Big Big Train will now at last be taken very seriously by people like you!