THE DIFFERENCE MACHINE

THE DIFFERENCE MACHINE has not exactly established itself as a Big Big Train classic, seeing as it received only one (admittedly enthusiastic) review here between 2013 and 2025. I must have bought the album soon after I'd discovered THE UNDERFALL YARD, not knowing anything about BBT's earlier releases. As a matter of fact I'm still unfamiliar with everything BBT did before THE DIFFERENCE MACHINE, but I do know all albums from the David Longdon and Alberto Bravin years. From today's point of view, I found it highly interesting to look back and wonder if THE DIFFERENCE MACHINE showed us 'classic BBT' in embryonic form. And to a certain extent that proved indeed to be the case: it'd be dead easy to imagine 'Perfect Cosmic Storm' (the album's most ambitious track) on THE UNDERFALL YARD, with David Longdon on vocals. Nick D'Virgilio's already there on drums, the main melody and the choruses are typically Greg Spawton, but the greatest surprise is that Spawton does not actually play bass (that role is taken by Dave Meros) - instead, he plays (delightfully scratchy) rhythm guitar throughout and even delivers a couple of brief but thoroughly convincing solos. Spawton also takes care of the guitars on the album's other 'mini-epics', but I must admit I had some trouble with those. 'Pick Up If You're There' is virtually tuneless, but it features some truly mean guitar combined with great saxophone, and Pete Trewavas is a highly exciting guest on bass. 'Saltwater Falling on Uneven Ground' reminded me a little of U2, but I didn't know what to make of Sean Filkins, the lead vocalist: now he adopts a fake U.S. accent, now he sounds like an innocent English choirboy. On 'Summer's Lease', the final track, Filkins also came over far too sweet - it's a good thing Rob Aubrey (BBT's sound engineer) was then about to discover David Longdon, who would take the band to a wholly new level of attainment. As for the meaning of the album: some of the lyrics are obscure, but it seems Greg Spawton was trying to equate the death of love with the death of stars. Perhaps he hadn't yet found his real theme: on subsequent albums his words would sound more convincing, with all those elegies for a long-lost England...

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