THE UNDERFALL YARD

I'll begin by saying that my main dilemma with this album was whether to award it a coveted 5 star 'classic of progressive music' rating. After some, but not much, deliberation I have, so you know from the outset that I regard this work extremely highly. 'Classic' is a difficult label to carry. To my mind it means, apart from anything else, that it has withstood the test of time. Given that this album was only officially released three weeks ago it seems a bit rich of me to be bandying such claims around for 'The Underfall Yard'. However, I will boldly state that, given the exposure that it surely warrants and deserves this will be regarded as a classic of 21st Century Neo-Prog by future generations of noodle-headed prog-discovers long after I am no more than dust - assuming of course that the aliens haven't destroyed us all by then, or that we find a sustainable way of generating electricity before we're all engulfed in tidal waves.

This apocalyptic vision is in some ways appropriate to my review because 'The Underfall Yard' is, to a large extent, concerned with lost technologies, dead industries and, by implication, the communities that die with them. This from the band's website:

"The Underfall Yard is a collection of songs which tell stories, some old and some new. You will travel through tunnels made by the great Victorian engineers in England's chalkhills, hear the mournful laments of coastal villages lost to the sea on storm-filled nights; you will meet the grand architect of castles. And have you heard the tale of the man who saved a great cathedral from collapse by diving under its flooded foundations? It's all here on The Underfall Yard."

Big Big Train cast a dewy, nostalgic eye into this disappeared world and bring it beautifully and evocatively to life through music that is by turns lyrical, poetic, pastoral, symphonic and quintessentially progressive. Yet, as we turn through the dials of the first decade of this century it feels incredibly relevant to me. It manages to be a seminal work in that it somehow takes everything that has been before it in the prog-rock genre and rework it into an absorbing, eloquent and magnificent distillation of everything we have ever loved about progressive music: virtuoso musicianship, extended-form compositions; complex musical landscapes; traditional and non-traditional forms of melody, harmony, and instrumentation. Trust me, this album is the last 40 years of progressive music concentrated into six, gorgeous, inspired, astonishing, breathtaking compositions.

A glance at the creative team behind this work should be enough to whet the appetite of anyone who has stumbled onto or regularly uses this site. Let me talk about the production first. It is pant-wettingly good. Modern recording techniques spoil us, and the ability of producers to orchestrate the intricacies of contemporary progressive music has become something of a valid expectation. This expectation is met with elan on 'The Underfall Yard'. Andy Poole (co-founder of Big Big Train) is credited as the producer with Rob Aubrey as having recorded and mixed the work. Rob Aubrey has also worked with such luminaries as Transatlantic, IQ, It Bites and Pendragon. What they achieve together is iridescent: remarkable clarity, separation, and dynamic breadth. As detailed, rich and textured a recording as you can conceive but beyond anything you can imagine. The sonic palette is something I am sort of familiar with, it quite distinctly echoes Genesis and Yes and has shades of Van Der Graaf Generator, wearing its influences quite openly on its sleeve - but this is also completely unique. Something I have never heard before. One of the luscious highlights of this album are the stunning brass arrangements (by Dave Desmond) using French Horn, Cornet, Trombone and Tuba to lend a definite 'heritage' feel to the overall sound: evoking the mills of Lancashire and the pits of Yorkshire; cobbled streets and blackened stone; hobnail boots and Lowry paintings. This is music with a particular 'Englishness' about it. More Blake's 'Jerusalem' than 'Greensleeves', this is not the music of the landed gentry, it is the music of those who worked that land and helped to create Brittania who so 'ruled the waves' during the industrial age.

The core trio of the band are Andy Poole (Bass and Keys), Greg Spawton (Guitars, bass and Keys) and newcomer to the band, David Longdon (Vocals, Flute, Mandolin, Dulcimer, Organ, Glockenspiel and Psaltry!). Now, Longdon has a very interesting pedigree in that he worked with Genesis in the post Phil Collins era (1996) and was for a few brief months their vocalist before Ray Wilson assumed the mantle on a more permanent basis. His Peter Gabrielesque inflections are entirely appropriate to Big Big Train's sound and he adds an extraordinarily sensitive dimension to this recording that colours every moment vocals are used. His moments as flautist are wonderful too. To say that the lineup of guest artists is stellar is to understate the case. Nick D'Virgillo (Spock's Beard, Genesis, Tears For Fears) drums, Dave Gregory (XTC - one of my favourite bands of all time) plays guitars, Jem Godfrey (Frost*) contributes synth solos, and Francis Dunnery (It Bites) lays down some stunning guitar solos on the title track.

I shan't go into this album on a track by track basis as this has been covered elsewhere and I think I've made my feelings plain about this work. One of my hopes would be that by submitting this review more people are introduced to the band and their work. Big Big Train do what they do as independent artists without the backing of a label and I wholeheartedly applaud and support this endeavour, I urge you, dear reader, to do the same.

I am genuinely smitten with 'The Underfall Yard', it is the shimmering darklight of a J.W.Turner painting combined with the classical, mythic beauty of a John William Waterhouse transposed into music. Art as music, music as Art. Emotional and involving; as inspiring as sunrise, as still as sunset, this is without doubt my album of 2009 and very, very probably my Album of the Decade.