{"id":41810,"date":"2009-12-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-underfall-yard\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:20:12","slug":"the-underfall-yard","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-underfall-yard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Underfall Yard"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven\u2019t been to England in years — unless, that is, you count the trips I\u2019ve taken recently while driving through California\u2019s Central Coast listening to Big Big Train\u2019s magnificent new album The Underfall Yard<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Of all the things that might strike me about these British progressive rockers\u2019 latest outing — the superb arrangements, the world-class musicianship, the depth of feeling poured into some of their most personal songs — the sense of place is what loomed largest in my mind as I sat down to write this review.\u00a0 It\u2019s quite simply one of the most British albums I\u2019ve ever heard.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s true enough that most of the classic prog bands were\/are British — and the music here feels like a charismatic melding of early Genesis and classic Yes, with more than little Floydian melancholy, reimagined with modern dynamics and sparkling production — it\u2019s the lyrics that cement the character of the music.\u00a0 This is an album grounded in history, with a literary quality to its lyrics about passing eras, the end of empires large and small, and the effects of societal change on those who can\u2019t or won\u2019t adapt.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The Underfall Yard<\/i> is Big Big Train\u2019s sixth studio album, the follow-up to 2007\u2019s superb The Difference Machine<\/i><\/a>, and their first with new vocalist David Longdon.\u00a0 Longdon joins founding members Greg Spawton (guitar, keys, songwriting) and Andy Poole (bass, production) as the core trio of a steadily evolving conglomeration of musicians that now includes Nick D\u2019Virgilio (Spock\u2019s Beard) as a \u201cpermanent guest\u201d on drums and background vocals.\u00a0 Dave Gregory of XTC also contributes guitar on five of these six tracks.<\/p>\n

To call Longdon a \u201cgood fit\u201d for Big Big Train would be an epic understatement.\u00a0 The newcomer to a band of avowed Genesis fans is not only at times a dead ringer vocally for Peter Gabriel, he actually worked with Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford for six months in 1996, competing for the lead vocal slot in the post-Phil Collins edition of Genesis that eventually featured D\u2019Virgilio on drums and Ray Wilson at the mike. <\/p>\n

The new lineup\u2019s debut outing opens with the instrumental \u201cEvening Star,\u201d effectively the overture to an album about the end of eras of one sort of another, and the losses that pile up with the passage of time.\u00a0 Even the five-line narrative of the subsequent six-minute-plus \u201cMaster James Of St. George\u201d conveys a deep sense of loss; Master James \u201cused to build castles of stone \/ Steel and blood \/ But lines get broken down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The emotional core of the album resides the stunning \u201cVictorian Brickwork,\u201d Spawton\u2019s elegy for his father, a navy man whose serial departures frayed the connection between father and son.\u00a0 Two minutes into this 12-minute track, the soft, pastoral opening gives way to a guitar-bass-drum-organ theme that frames the remainder of the song, a lively and complex motif that feels like an outtake from The Yes Album<\/i>.\u00a0 The mid-song climax comes as Longdon\/Spawton declares \u201cNow I know who I am \/ I know what I mean \/ And I know where I came from \/ From the sea\u201d before the music falls back into a long, dreamy jam that evolves into a gorgeous, soaring orchestral section where strings and horns build toward a magnificently sad crescendo, a segment that could easily be subtitled \u201cSoundtrack To An Era Passing.\u201d\u00a0 The chorus then returns, this time as a gentle coda: \u201cLost in low light and ocean tides \/ The love you never meant to hide.\u201d\u00a0 Gorgeous and absolutely brilliant.<\/p>\n

Next up are a couple of uniquely British tales.\u00a0 \u201cLast Train\u201d traces the literal \u201cend of the line\u201d for a railroad man whose branch line is being abandoned, and features especially fabulous Gregory guitar solos.\u00a0 And \u201cWinchester Diver\u201d — whose opening instrumental section has a rather Ian-Anderson-fronting-the-Alan-Parsons-Project feel — spins the tale of the lonely, impossibly dangerous work done in 1906 by a lone diver shoring up the foundations of Winchester Cathedral as worshippers and clergy continued about their business above.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The epic title track — 22 minutes of turning, twisting, captivating prog — is a veritable all-star jam, with terrific, fully-integrated guest appearances by Jem Godfrey (Frost*), Francis Dunnery (It Bites) and Dave Gregory, and especially percussive flute work from Longdon.\u00a0 Favorite moments include the powerful jam between 6:30 and 7:20, where Godfrey duels the rhythm section to a draw, and the flowing, distinctly Greg Lake-ish acoustic guitar \/ analog synth section from around 15:05 through 15:35.<\/p>\n

As wonderful as The Difference Machine<\/i> was, The Underfall Yard<\/i> is its equal and more.\u00a0 Longdon is a magically good fit for the group, and the addition of brass and strings to half these tracks lends extra weight and substance to the naturally-present orchestral elements of the music.\u00a0 Indeed, there is a distinctly British beauty to the music, which manages to be both reserved and passionate, stark and sophisticated, keenly aware of history while drawing a clear through-line to the present.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The best prog taps into the imagination and emotions in ways that carry the music beyond the scope of entertainment and into the realm of art. With The Difference Machine<\/i> and now The Underfall Yard<\/i>, Big Big Train has firmly established itself as one of the most impressive and affecting progressive rock acts working today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8052],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41810","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-big-big-train","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41810"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41810"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}