Big Big Train Appreciation

Second Brightest Star is their best release since English Electric. Fight me.

^Downloaded it last week, right after purchasing Grimspound. Great track, the sum is more than the individual parts.

Quinino wrote: LONDON SONG

This song they have beaten many times on different albums. The theme is excellent, but the approach begins to resemble Waters with his Wall

Quinino wrote: I see it as the cherry on top of the cake - but then I've already started to fancy all they release (for some time now) with no critical sense whatsoever, just full open arms

But why? Album Grimposound  is beautiful. Folklore is unusual, but beautiful.
Sorry, but "The Second Brightest Star" is a mixture of Bryan Ferry (As Time Goes By ), Rod Stewart  (The Great American Songbook) and 1 song - pouring out Peter Gabriel

BBT are on one of those great album runs that bands sometimes have from The Underfall Yard to the current album. There aren't many bands that I am anyway near as fond of (perhaps Anathema might give them a run for their money but that's it)

Edited by richardh - September 08 2017 at 00:24

People's views on the Merry Christmas EP, please. On 'Merry Christmas' I love the 'Olde' England and anti-commercial sentiment and the 'knowing' brass band/choir stereotypical theme. Not necessarily premier BBT, it doesn't quite hit the highs, but you'd need to be a real Scrooge to question it unduly - given the charity link. However, I do think 'Snowfalls' is rather good - with its wistful, growing old, the kids not around anymore,melancholy. Nice one, guys!

It's rather nice and I like that it's very traditional but isn't going to challenge Greg Lake anytime soon for best Xmas record by a proggie. 

Breaking news. Andy Poole has left BBT. No idea why as yet. This will be a huge blow, although they are carrying on, and recruiting a new member for live work (not that there is a great deal of that)

Must admit I'm not even that familiar with the BBT line up. Dave Longdon and Nick D'Virgillio are the only ones I could name off the top off my head! I know there were always 2 main writers so I assume that Andy was one of those?

richardh wrote: Must admit I'm not even that familiar with the BBT line up. Dave Longdon and Nick D'Virgillio are the only ones I could name off the top off my head! I know there were always 2 main writers so I assume that Andy was one of those?

No, I think Poole has had less of a writing role since The Underfall Yard, although I always had the impression that the artistic direction and musical impetus were shared by him and Spawnton, with Longden obviously taking an increasingly influential role in recent times.

Members on other forums have said that Poole was pretty much finished as far as creative input was concerned. I'm not quite sure that is wholly the case, and I always think that a band losing a founding member like this is a huge moment, and such moments are rarely for the better.