Postindustrial Hometown Blues. Big Special

From subterranean to postindustrial is a 59 year gap. Musically it is a huge gap. And yet, Dylan's influence is quite discernable on Big Special's album. Just listen to how Joe Hicklin plays with language in 'I Mock Joggers'. The lyrics are a mix of understandable words and sentences that become near incomprehensible when set after one another. They are presented somewhere between singing and speaking, all fired in a sure-fire tempo to my ears. The music has evolved from Dylan's mix of electrified folk, blues and rock and roll to Big Special's post punk. 59 years is a long time, in life, in music and in a lot more. Post punk was unimaginable in 1965. Dylan's hitsingle perhaps unknown for youths.

In 2024 Big Special's music falls into a long line of post punk bands that are in vogue let's say since 2018. It's only half of the story though. What I notice is how the band hovers between post punk and Britpop. At times the band even shoots in and out of the two, like in 'Shithouse'. Just listen how Hicklin's voice slips into a Ray Davies impersonation before going back to his sing-talking and aggressive spitting out of the word shithouse or later on in 'Ill' to Gaz Coombes'. If I'm attracted to Big Special's song, it is this combination. The band has fantastic melodic passages woven into its tough stances, that it presents with so much swagger. There's no one trick ponying going on on Postindustrial Hometown Blues. You will even find some studio experiments not unlike The Beatles were good at in their time. Two other links to the 1960s for you.

Big Special is a duo from the U.K, including drummer Callum Moloney. The two knew each other from college but then both went their own ways. After letting Moloney hear his demos, he left the party circuit cover band he played in and jumped into an uncertain musical future. No one can predict the future but it looks like to me that based on an album like Postindustrial Hometown Blues that future in the short run should contain playing live a lot.

Over the past years I've heard a lot of post punk bands, mostly from the U.K. and The Netherlands and again a band manages to stand out. Big Special is exactly what its name promises. Of course there are elements that will sound familiar to you. Take 'Black Dog White Horse', the single that caught my attention first. Melodically it is so strong and shows that Hicklin's voice is a lot more than the angry poet's voice he shows a lot on the album. There are not a lot of songs like it on the early records of colleague band's early albums. Just as easily keyboards carry a song and not a guitar.

It is the mix of the two approaches that makes Postindustrial Hometown Blues a strong album. Even after a few spins it is still unpredictable. This will stop after I know the album even better, of course. The surprise factor is what I'm attracted to right now it is what makes the album stand out and (big) special. Where the first singles I was alerted to all did not make the singles posts, the album easily made it to these pages, once I had received a small reminder, that I had wanted to listen but hadn't found the time yet. Here is me making up.

Wout de Natris