ENGLISH ELECTRIC (PART ONE)

I agree with many of the points people make when giving Big Big Train's upteenth album the highest mark - lush instrumentation, employing almost every live instrument at disposal of folk and rock musicians (lutes, flutes...), strong dramatic vocals (one of the best, in my opinion, among the Genesis clones), top notch musicianship from a ton of guests, a conceptual, very "English" atmosphere. It seemed to me, though, as if the band is more interested in creating arrangements than on song structure and vocal lines. It was a problem before, is largely corrected here, but still shows sometimes. The switch between the eiree atmospheric beginning and end of Boy in darkness, and rollicking folk rock soloing in the middle, for example. All the individual passages are brilliant, to be sure, but this switch in a sad topic song seems quite sudden to me.