Big Big Train Gets Back on Track
The international proggers return after the sudden, tragic death of lead singer David Longdon on "The Likes of Us."
Thank you for spending part of your day with Michael’s Record Collection. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve sent out a new issue, so I appreciate your time more than ever. In fact, as busy as I’ve been over the last month at my regular job, in addition to various side projects, and trying to improve my fitness, time has been an issue since the start of the year. Hopefully that’s in the past for a while.
I’m particularly pleased this week to be able to bring you my review of the stunning new album by Big Big Train, a truly international band of musicians that produces music that is unquestionably inspired by the classic English progressive rock bands. I was fortunate enough to speak with founding member Gregory Spawton about The Likes of Us.
Let’s get to that story.
Big Big Train suffered a crippling blow on Nov. 20, 2021. David Longdon, the soulful voice of the band since 2009, succumbed to injuries sustained in a tragic fall at his home. He was only 56 years old, and his voice had lifted an already good band — with five albums to their credit — to dizzying new heights in modern progressive rock circles.
The band had an album already in production at the time of Longdon’s death — 2022’s Welcome to the Planet — but founding member Gregory Spawton wasn’t sure the band would continue after losing his friend, musical collaborator, and lead singer.
“It was a huge question (of whether the band would continue or not). In fact, I couldn’t even contemplate it,” Spawton said. “The thing is, David wasn’t ill. It was an accidental death. And so, therefore you’ve got no preparation. You’ve got no thoughts about what you’re going to do or how you’re going to respond to this sudden, shocking situation. David’s partner, Sarah, reminded me that she’d had conversations with David to say, ‘Look if something ever happened to me, make sure Big Big Train carries on.’ So, I felt like we had his blessing and Sarah’s blessing, and that was important to me.
“But, on the other hand, I just thought ‘How many bands have been through the loss of such an important figure and managed to carry on?’ I was scratching my head thinking about it. There are examples as AC/DC, which was able to continue, but there are other examples like The Doors, where it didn’t work for them at all. Basically what happened is there was a meeting between me, (multi-instrumentalist) Rikard (Sjoblom), and NDV (drummer Nick D’Virgilio) — NDV and Rikard were the two guys that had been my close bandmates since 2009 or so — and our manager as well. I went into that call thinking actually I do want to see if we can carry the band on. But the thing was, if either of them were out, if either Rikard or NDV couldn’t, then that was it for me. But we all felt the same.
“We all felt, you know, we’ve put our heart and soul into this music over the last few years, and we thought as long as we could find the right guy or girl, the right person as a new singer, then we’ll give it a go. We’ll see what happens.”
Spawton had saved Alberto Bravin’s name in his phone some time earlier as a possible singer for a solo project. After a lot of searching, he tracked down an email address and contacted Bravin, who told Spawton he was already a fan of Big Big Train. Bravin agreed to an audition, and he got the gig.
Thankfully, the band did continue, or we wouldn’t have the outstanding The Likes of Us getting ready to drop on March 1 from Inside Out Music. The band’s 15th studio album sees the band licking its wounds, getting up off the mat, and turning tragedy into triumph.
The lineup features new lead vocalist Bravin, who had been with Italian progressive legends Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) as a keyboardist/vocalist. It also includes new keyboardist Oskar Holldorff, who joined Big Big Train in 2023. Returning are Spawton (bass, bass pedals, 12-string acoustic guitar, and Mellotron), D’Virgilio (drums, percussion, vocals, 12-string-acoustic guitar), Sjoblom (guitars, keyboards, vocals), Dave Foster (guitars), and Clare Lindley (violin, vocals).
The members of Big Big Train convened in Trieste, Italy, at Urban Recording to make the record that became The Likes of Us. It was the first time Big Big Train had worked all together in the same studio since about 1997, according to Spawton.
“I feel that’s given the album a bit more of an edge to it,” Spawton said. “We could change arrangements on a dime. We’d stop a song and say ‘Can we try this bit like this?’, and then we could just communicate like human beings rather than across the internet, where it may be 20 emails before you get to your point. I don’t think we’ll ever go back to recording an album remotely again. I think we’ll always be in the studio together now from this point on.”
Being all together, the band could work in productive bursts, and then break for lunch or a beer, enjoying the Italian port city’s cafes, before returning to the business of making the album.
In addition to recording “old school” (as Spawton put it), The Likes of Us featured another change for the band. A fiercely independent enterprise since its founding, Big Big Train had signed with Inside Out Music. The Likes of Us is the band’s first album under its new deal with the German-based label. If Big Big Train was going to sign with any label, the band picked the right one, as Inside Out is used to working with progressive rock bands and understands the audience for this kind of music.
“They’re just completely behind us and they’re not trying to change us,” Spawton said. “They know what they signed. They know what we can deliver. We’ve got this album coming out soon. We’ve got a live Blu-ray coming out later in the year as well. So I just feel that we’ve got a bit more heft behind us.”
On The Likes of Us, Big Big Train turns its pain into beauty. It’s an introspective and exquisite collection of eight songs, primarily about loss and friendship. Known for writing third-party story songs about such subjects as art forgers (on the outstanding “Judas Unrepentant” from English Electric) or Victorian engineers (on the title track from The Underfall Yard), Big Big Train turned inward for deeper and more personal subject matter on the new album.
Writing and making this album was a critical part of the group’s grieving process over the loss of Longdon, and Big Big Train proves that it can carry on in his absence, taking inspiration from the late singer’s time in the band and building something new with Bravin out front. Bravin isn’t trying to replace or to be Longdon. He’s just being himself and seems to approach the material with the utmost respect for what Longdon had built with the band.
The album kicks off beautifully, with “Light Left in the Day,” which puts Bravin’s vocals up front immediately over a 12-string acoustic guitar pattern. This serves to let fans know that the band is in good hands with its new lead singer. His voice sounds enough like Longdon’s as to not be a jarring change from the band’s material over the last several albums, and it suits the music well. A gorgeous horn interlude follows the intro and gives way to an emotional piano and string section before the band kicks things up, building the song with Mellotron washes, electric guitar, and more.
The tempo gets a boost at the two-minute mark, and the rhythm section of D’Virgilio’s drums and Spawton’s bass provide a solid foundation, supporting everyone else’s moments to shine.
The message of the opening track seems simple enough: life is short, so make the most of it. It’s exactly what you’d expect to be on the minds of musicians who lost such a talent (and friend) as Longdon, but it also speaks to Spawton’s recent loss of his stepdad as well.
“This album, with the exception of ‘Miramare,’ which is a history story based in Trieste, the rest of it is incredibly personal,” Spawton said. “At this point, with the two major losses I’ve had in my life — and also Alberto had been through a tough time in his personal life as well — it didn’t feel honest or real that we could write about some other subjects that were not about what we’d experienced. And I hope people will respond to it in a way that we did when we were recording it. We got very emotionally engaged when we were recording the album, because it is from the heart, this one.”
After “Light Left in the Day” winds down to a delicate conclusion, Big Big Train shows off its power with the rockier “Oblivion,” a song with lyrics by D’Virgilio about growing up as a misfit or an outsider. It’s the heaviest track on the album. It might also be NDV’s best drum track on the album. Spawton’s bass line shows he has the chops to credibly play more aggressive styles of music.
The song goes through a quiet interlude about two-thirds of the way through, allowing for some dreamy lead and harmony vocals and providing the atmosphere and space that Big Big Train delivers so well. That section segues nicely into a big, heavy finish to the song.
“Beneath the Masts” is the album’s epic centerpiece at more than 17 minutes long. It’s a personal song by Spawton that sprung from driving to visit his stepdad in hospice.
“It was a challenge to write. I didn’t know that it was going to be as long as it was,” Spawton said of the epic. “I think it’s a mistake to sit down and think, ‘Oh, I’ve got to write an epic.’ It should never work like that. But as I was telling the story within the music, it began to feel like a more hefty piece of music. I kind of knew what (topic) I was writing about when I was writing the music, but I just needed to find the right sort of metaphor to kind of get me into the body of the song, and it began to coalesce around these huge television transmitter aerials. They’re like 500 feet tall. They’re huge things. I grew up in the Midlands in a town called Sutton Coldfield, and everything that happened in my childhood, I could always see, literally, these big masts in the background, sort of blinking away because of the red light on top of them.
“And when my stepfather was dying, I was driving back up to the Midlands from the south coast to visit as often as I could, and the hospice that he was in was right underneath one of these masts that I grew up near. So, I was driving past it every day. It just began to feel like the metaphor for the song that these big guidewires that were sort of holding me down to my roots with my stepfather and the Midlands were beginning to almost be broken and be torn away, and I felt a bit lacking in connection to how I grew up and all those things. So that got me writing about my childhood, and I tried to take the song through to the point where my stepdad died. I didn’t want to be trite, but I didn’t want the song to be incredibly bleak, so, as much as I could, I tried to write an ending that was — uplifting is maybe the wrong word, but certainly made people feel that life goes on. I mean, we all have to deal with these things, all of us. And you have to pick yourself up and try and get on with life. And so there was this sort of spring around the corner metaphor that I used in the last few bits which kind of gives it hopefully a more uplifting ending than the earlier parts of the song.”
Spawton added that the band felt the emotion of the song during the recording process, and there were teary eyes in the studio.
Musically, “Beneath the Masts” starts with the kind of pastoral — and recognizably English — soundscape for which Big Big Train is known. Keyboards and 12-string acoustic guitar are prevalent and the opening moments set the tone for this emotionally charged epic. As with any good prog epic, there are twists and turns, extended instrumental passages, and mood shifts.
At about the 13-minute mark there’s a keyboard solo that is perhaps the best on the album, and the soaring ending is breathtaking. The song stands among Big Big Train’s best epics, alongside the likes of “The Underfall Yard” and “The Wide Open Sea.” A return to the pastoral, 12-string acoustic sound with flute brings the track to its conclusion. It’s difficult to not be moved by this song, even without knowing the story behind it. Armed with that knowledge, it simply amplifies the emotional heft of the track.
The longest track is followed by the album’s shortest — “Skates On,” a pulsing showcase of the band’s ability to harmonize. The band is blessed with backing vocalists who could be the lead singer for most other bands, and Big Big Train uses them to great effect on “Skates On.” As with “Light Left in the Day,” the message, hammered home at the end of the track, is to seize the day, because life is fleeting.
Time to get your skates on
We’re only here for so long
Time to get your skates on
We’re here, we’re gone
Here and gone
The second of the album’s two big epics follows, with “Miramare,” a story song based in the town in which the album was recorded — and with lyrics co-written by Bravin. It clocks in at just over 10 minutes and begins with more lovely harmonizing by the band’s singers. Spawton said he wrote the song on the fly.
“Honestly, it was written and sung into an iPhone, and that’s how the others were hearing it,” he said. “The elaborate arrangement you’ve got now developed later on. It was as humble as it could be.”
Bravin delivers what might be his best vocal performance on the album on “Miramare.” The band members believed the song was representative enough of their continued commitment to the progressive rock for which they’re known that they made it their second single from the album. Layered vocals set this song apart. It contains some of the album’s most memorable melody lines, and it has emerged as my early favorite from the record.
“Love is the Light” is the second lyric co-written by Bravin and Spawton. Bravin shows some range with higher singing at times, and it’s a great example of one of Big Big Train’s quintessentially English pastoral songs with its 12-string acoustic guitar. Once again, the group harmony vocals are in fine form, with an anthemic, recurring “oh-oh-oh-OH-oh” line.
“Bookmarks” isn’t a big departure from “Love is the Light.” The intro section could have been written by Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford for a Trespass-era Genesis album, only Big Big Train does group harmonies in a bigger and better way than early Genesis.
Speaking of Genesis, album closer “Last Eleven” shares a lot of musical DNA with that particular all-time great progressive band. It begins with a vaguely “Dance on a Volcano” sound before morphing into something completely different. Spawton’s thundering bass line is one of the highlights, but it’s got all kinds of sounds that call back to classic, mid-period Genesis. D’Virgilio shines again during the uptempo sections of the song, and Lindley’s magical violin work adds texture and depth, along with the Mellotron washes and subtle electric guitar flourishes.
The Likes of Us is a cohesive album from start to finish. There is a flow and consistency throughout, both musically and lyrically, and although there is variation from song to song, there’s not a track that stands out as not fitting in well with the others.
“I think all of our better albums are where we really worked it through and tried to create something as a single piece of art rather than a collection of songs,” Spawton said.
Beyond these eight songs being pleasing to the ear, the album itself sounds good, thanks to Rob Aubrey’s engineering efforts. There’s also a spatial audio mix by Bruce Soord of The Pineapple Thief, and I can’t wait to hear that high-definition audio version.
“That’s been the benefit of the Inside Out deal, is leaving in some funds to help us put this out in Dolby Atmos,” Spawton said. “With Inside Out support, we’ll be doing every studio album with an Atmos mix.”
Longtime fans of Big Big Train will find plenty to love on The Likes of Us. While it’s certainly a challenge to replace a talent such as Longdon, Bravin performs admirably, and his voice suits the band’s music comparably to the group’s former singer. The songs themselves are identifiably Big Big Train in both quality and sound, while the lyrical subject matter is less esoteric and more relatable than on past albums.
This couldn’t have been an easy album for Big Big Train to have made, but the band may be considerably better off for having made it. And the vast majority of Big Big Train fans will likely be happy they did.
What’s more, the band’s U.S. fans will get a treat this year, as Big Big Train is finally doing a handful of live dates on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, starting March 1, in the lead-up to the band’s upcoming appearance on Cruise to the Edge this spring.
To learn more about Big Big Train or order a copy of The Likes of Us, visit the band’s official website. You can also follow them on Facebook or Twitter.
Tracklist:
Light Left In The Day (6:10)
Oblivion (5:27)
Beneath The Masts (17:26)
Skates On (4:28)
Miramare (10:17)
Love Is The Light (6:11)
Bookmarks (6:23)
Last Eleven (7:55)
For my full interview with Gregory Spawton, please see the video below or download/stream Episode 130 of the Michael’s Record Collection podcast. In addition to discussing The Likes of Us, Gregory spoke about his musical background, the decision to sign with Inside Out Music, how he finally became a full-time, professional musician in his 50s, and more.
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