\u201cAt dusk the English made their last stand\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cThe Last English King\u201d by Gregory Spawton<\/i><\/p>\n
One of the pleasures of following a band for a long time is the chance it offers to appreciate how their music develops over the years\u2014how the artist grows and changes at the same time you are.<\/p>\n
Another truism about popular music is that bands that persist over a long period of time often end up with \u201clost\u201d recordings\u2014songs or entire albums that have disappeared into the ether for one reason or another, only to stir the curiosity and imaginations of the group\u2019s fans.<\/p>\n
The progressive rock band Big Big Train was founded by Gregory Spawton and Andy Poole in 1990, and by the end of that decade had traced a painfully familiar arc from enthusiastic young bucks to signed recording artists, to a pair of ambitious but commercially unsuccessful albums, to getting dropped and retreating, quite literally, back home. With the band off the road and without label backing, in fall of the year 2000 Spawton and Poole decamped to the former\u2019s dining room, where work commenced on a home-brewed album they viewed as the group\u2019s literal last stand.<\/p>\n
Adding to the generally funereal atmosphere, chief songwriter and guitarist Spawton\u2019s personal life was in shambles and the band and its founding lead singer Martin Read were drifting apart. The resulting third Big Big Train album Bard<\/i> was difficult in every sense of the word, and disappeared with hardly a trace upon its (very limited) release.<\/p>\n
By the time Big Big Train had commenced an upward trajectory once again a few years later, the group had turned their backs on Bard<\/i>, to the point where they formally \u201cdeleted\u201d it from their catalogue, declining to press new copies or, later, post it on streaming services. Surviving copies from the original run of 1000 CDs became collector\u2019s items, fetching impressive sums on online auction sites. <\/p>\n
At a certain point, though, some combination of time passed, perspective gained, and persistent inquiries from fans convinced the band to reverse course, resulting in the return last month of Bard<\/i> to the BBT canon. The new reissue has been buffed to a shine in several respects: BBT sound guru Rob Aubrey gave the entire album a fresh new mix and master, various keyboard elements and bass pedals were updated; and a few percussion and vocal bits that had gone missing were re-recorded by Bard<\/i>-era drummer Phil Hogg and vocalist Jo Michaels. <\/p>\n
The project also occasioned a welcome reunion between Spawton and the since-departed Poole, who produced and played bass on Bard<\/i>, as well as founding keyboardist Ian Cooper, who shared keyboard duties on Bard<\/i> with Tony M\u00fcller. Still, the reissue of an album with such a complex history demanded a scene-setting essay to be fully appreciated, and Andy Stuart has done a brilliant job there. His liner notes offer essential context, both exploring the original album\u2019s development and deftly highlighting the threads of connection running between Bard<\/i>, its predecessor English Boy Wonders<\/i><\/a>, and the ten-years-later EP Far Skies Deep Time<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n As for the listening experience, it\u2019s clear that Mr. Aubrey\u2019s hours at the mixing board were well spent, breathing new life into a set of tracks that, while dark and sometimes raw, have much to offer. The album also is unique in the BBT catalogue in that at various points it features four lead vocalists: Michaels, Spawton himself, Read, and especially M\u00fcller, whose vocal talents Spawton and Poole discovered by accident early in the recording process when they heard him singing to himself in the other room.<\/p>\n M\u00fcller\u2019s pleasantly gritty and more rock-oriented vocals show up immediately on opening track\u2014and album highlight\u2014\u201cThe Last English King,\u201d a powerfully imagined and arranged tune about the defeat of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The drama the group invests in one of their earlier historical tales pays off well, and the keyboards in the middle section of this six-plus-minute track dazzle more than ever in the new mix. <\/p>\n Next up, \u201cBroken English\u201d is the first of two epics featured, a 14-minute tune exploring in sometimes mythological terms what Spawton describes as \u201cmy parents\u2019 destructive relationship.\u201d The entire lyric features in the first five minutes, followed by ten minutes of adventurous music, ranging from a frenetic guitar-organ jam to a nicely appointed piano, bass pedals and guitar interlude around the midpoint. From the 12th minute onward, Spawton delivers a purposeful tip of the hat to Rush\u2019s \u201cLa Villa Strangiato\u201d that works well.<\/p>\n From that strong opening, things grow rougher and patchier. \u201cThis Is Where We Came In\u201d is a melancholy number expressing turmoil and confusion. \u201cBlacksmithing\u201d is a pretty yet absolutely brutal song about the damage done to the children in a divorce. And \u201cLove Is Her Thing\u201d is a mid-tempo wallow about feeling unable to make your partner happy. In between and after, a series of brief instrumental interludes offer flashes of interest (especially the Floydian overtones of \u201cHow The Earth From This Place Has Power Over Fire\u201d), but don\u2019t add a great deal.<\/p>\n \u201cA Short Visit To Earth,\u201d featuring Spawton\u2019s delicate vocals, is a desperately sad number about the pain of estrangement from one\u2019s own family (\u201cI\u2019ve been living in some kind \/ Of dark place \/ For a long time\u2026 Daddy\u2019s been rubbed out \/ Been blown out for a little while\u201d). Second epic \u201cFor Winter\u201d has been scrubbed and sharpened beautifully in the new mix, adding depth of field on a track that features especially punchy bass from Poole. Despite having its moments, though, \u201cFor Winter\u201d feels both overlong and almost voyeuristic in its exploration of emotional torment and dissolution. <\/p>\n The album proper closes with \u201cA Long Finish,\u201d a sort of instrumental underture reprising various musical elements from throughout the album. The rather sunny electric guitar theme early in the third minute offers a break in the clouds before we wind to the close, which repeats the same acoustic rhythm \/ electric lead guitar theme that opens the album, winking at the latter\u2019s line \u201cYou are the dawn of an ending.\u201d<\/p>\n The reissue adds a pair of bonus tracks. \u201cHeadlands\u201d is an outtake from the original Bard<\/i> sessions, a bitter acoustic number (\u201cIf only I could see your face again \/ God I hope I never will\u201d), and then we close with the second highlight, a second version of \u201cThe Last English King,\u201d this time a live recording from the current BBT lineup\u2019s 2024 tour. The song is instantly recognizable yet thoroughly transformed, a magnificent rendering that\u2019s proof positive of both the brilliance of the current lineup and the worthiness of the source material.<\/p>\n