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Released on May 27, 2016 via English Electric Recordings
From the opening clarion call of brass that ushers in the title track of the new album from progressive outfit Big Big Train, you can feel a tension and atmospheric urge to deliver an album that will carry on the standard set out by their previous work. You see, Big Big Train are one of those rare animals in the music world in that they have been allowed to develop their sound whilst an appreciative audience has grown in size to the point where they could lay the claim to being one of the premier progressive rock outfits. Folklore does much to cement this and for those who were bowled over by the delights of The Underfall Yard and English Electric, they will now find a band supremely confident in what they do.
Harking back to the classic age of prog and steeped in a pastoral style, Big Big Train have always delivered songs of substance and integrity. Mixing superb musicianship with conceptual lyrics of an England long lost, they tap into that lost vein which served early Genesis so well. Folklore is their most Genesis sounding album, but only in a pastoral sense with shades of Selling England By The Pound and Wind and Wuthering seeping in. Digging deeper, you find a band who take their influences and turn them into their own though and throughout this album that sense of nostalgia and Englishness is mixed with a peculiar urgency.
It is the brass that shines through most and delivers that sense of urgency. Aside from that opening call, there is a sublime moment when ‘Along The Ridgeway’ segues into ‘Salisbury Giant’, all done without a blink of an eye and for those lost in the music, a continuous journey. Elements of conceptualism and continuation merge to deliver a moment of sublime grace as the nervous energy dissolves into vocalist Dave Longdon picking up the vocals.
Folklore is an album to sink into, it reveals its many gifts on repeated listens, but is also extremely inviting. Such is the nature of the music, you get sucked into a world of racing car green and hazy country roads. It’s almost the aural equivalent of that wonderful chapter in Wind In The Willows, which Pink Floyd would take for their first album title. As the chorus of ‘London Plane’ soars, the sense of not just Englishness, but a lost age, fills you with a sense of longing and loss. Emotionally wracking, there is always a joy in what they do though, delivered through the passion of Dave Gregory’s wonderful guitar playing.
Featuring a concept centred around high tales as the album title suggests, only on a Big Big Train album could you get a song telling the story of Winkie the pigeon who won the Dickin Medal for his actions during the Second World War. A song steeped in progressive attitudes, for most bands it would be the centrepiece of the album, but Big Big Train don’t work like that. On Folklore they deliver a number of songs, which elevate this album to something much more than just another progressive rock album. Take the swoon of ‘London Plane’, which creeps up on you after the longing of ‘Salisbury Giant’. You are then invited to join the brass section as ‘The Transit Of Venus Against The Sun’ begins its majestic rise, whilst later on the stunning ‘Brooklands’ heaps on more emotional clarity than a lifetime of Marillion albums could ever hope to do. These are songs that demand constant listening as they evolve into something altogether much more transcendent.
Outside of the “epics” there is the musical showcase of ‘Mudlarks’, the stomp of ‘Wassail’ and the utter delight of ‘Telling The Bees’, which ends the album on a gloriously upbeat moment. Prog rock you can sing along too? This is the song. Each containing its own charm to deserve its place in this rather remarkable album.
Folklore is an album that stays with you and as each listen passes you by, you discover something you missed before. The best moments are when a semi-forgotten moment rises its head and you burst into a big smile as recognition takes hold. It’s a complicated album, but delivered in such ease and simplicity that it becomes so natural. Taken as a whole or approached song by song, it has an episodic quality, which when taken altogether delivers a master punch. It’s sublime, soaring and glorious. It is damn near faultless and Big Big Train, through this collection of songs, have made what may well turn out to be the best album released this year. Big Big Train just became big big players in the prog world.
