English Electric (Part One)

Big Big Train.

Not exactly an auspicious name for a band - more likely to remind people from the UK of a certain 1990s TV comedy sketch show than purveyors of progressive rock. But if you look past the name at what these guys have done since their debut in 1994, you find a rich vein of fine music.

Whilst their back-catalogue is good, there is no doubt that BBT reached new heights with the release of 2009's The Underfall Yard and its 2010 companion piece Far Skies, Deep Time. With its tales of great Victorian engineers, rural stationmasters and a heroic diver saving a cathedral's flooded foundations, The Underfall Yard (TUY) highlighted the band's strong connection with English history and heritage whilst giving us music equal in ambition and intensity to anything produced by the likes of Yes and Genesis in their 1970s pomp. Now, BBT are back with a new release, English Electric (Part One) (hereafter EE1) - and the good news is that it builds upon that impressive foundation, further underlining their mastery of prog as a storytelling medium.

Let's start with the packaging. In an age increasingly dominated by the digital download, it is more important than ever to ensure that a physical CD looks the part, and thankfully EE1 doesn't disappoint. The artwork of both digipak and booklet is richly symbolic, consisting of wonderful, semi-abstract close-up photographs of peeling paint, rusting bolts and industrial decay - just the kind of stuff I like photographing myself, as it happens :) It all fits very well with some of the themes explored in this album - and in its predecessors, for that matter.

But what of the music itself?

The overall feel of EE1 is lighter and a touch more delicate than TUY, without quite so much of the driving intensity of that album. The subject matter of the songs is just as varied but the music is, if anything, more diverse. Some tracks are more pop or folk in style than classic prog, and the album as a whole is stronger for it. Brass, woodwind, strings and other traditional instruments are used throughout but are woven into the fabric of the album in a more natural, organic fashion than was the case with TUY.

I fear I cannot wax as lyrical as some reviewers about the specifics, but here are some rough impressions of individual album tracks:

1. The First Rebreather revisits the theme of Winchester Diver from TUY, telling another tale of heroic underwater endeavour. The music is in much the same vein as TUY, and the uplifting chorus will put a smile on your face. Plenty of flute work here, along with some classic proggy organ & synth soloing in the closing stages.


2. Uncle Jack, by contrast, is the perfect summer pop song - all banjo, acoustic guitar and wonderful vocal harmonies. You'll be thinking "XTC" within a few bars, I guarantee you! The song is about vocalist Dave Longdon's uncle, a Derbyshire collier with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the countryside.


3. Winchester From St Giles' Hill is perhaps the centrepiece of the album. Epic in scope, if not in length, it relates the history of the city of Winchester. It's an emotion-packed piece of music, making good use of flute and piano, and featuring some excellent guitar work from Dave Gregory.


4. Judas Unrepentant has a rather more urgent pace and repeats a very distinctive plucked acoustic guitar and Hammond organ motif in between harmony-laden choruses. The song concerns the misdeeds of notorious 1970s art forger Tom Keating.


5. Summoned By Bells exhibits more subtle charms than the preceding tracks. Like Track 3, it relates a history - this time on a smaller and more personal scale, focusing on the area of Leicester where Greg Spawton's parents and grandparents grew up. Some of the best music on the album can be found here. Piano and violin feature prominently at the beginning, before instruments such as recorders and even the venerable Mellotron take their turn briefly in the spotlight. Dave Longdon's soaring vocals are the thread that ties everything together. The closing section is slow and moody, featuring piano, brass and a soulful guitar solo.


6. Upton Heath - "a song of friendship and of the Dorset countryside" - puts us squarely back into pop territory, albeit with a strong infusion of folk. It's a delicate, simple and quite beautiful piece, with a melody picked out by banjo and mandolin. Once again, violin and flute play a prominent role.


7. A Boy In Darkness is quite different in tone to the rest of the album - moody and dark, as befits the tale it tells of a boy who dies down a coal mine. After the initial verses, a fat Hammond organ riff kicks off a powerful instrumental passage of strings, flute and electric guitar before the vocals return and the emotion surges once more.


8. Hedgerow concludes affairs in a much more upbeat fashion, putting us back in the countryside with Uncle Jack. The first three minutes is all jangly guitars, evoking XTC once again, before a brief surge of Mellotron and guitar signals a change of pace. Subsequent passages give violin and guitar a chance to shine before brass and vocals kick in again to take us home.

So there it is, English Electric: pastoral, beautiful, masterful. A masterpiece.

We await Part Two with much anticipation!