THE LIKES OF US

Sarah Ewing's sunny cover picture and booklet illustrations are cheering and point towards a new start, but in the central band photo everyone looks as if they're suffering from serious food poisoning. (Everyone, except new lead singer Alberto Bravin, that is: he has taken up a dominant position and indeed, his role in the band seems crucial - of the 8 tracks on the album he co-wrote 5, and he also helped Rob Aubrey with the mixing.)

This dichotomy, if you like, is reflected in the music. Some of the material is lovely; at other times the band seem to be sinking under the weight of their good intentions.

Let me focus on the disappointments first. The album opens touchingly, with a mournful statement that we should all 'make the most of the light left in the day', but the instrumental development that follows sounds hollow, like the overture to a second-rate rock opera. I'm afraid the ten minute 'Miramare' also failed to convince me. The piece comes across as a dramatic mini-oratorio, and I'll admit it features impressive choruses, but the lyrics are trite, and no true emotion speaks from Bravin's lead vocal. (As far as I can tell, the track deals with a woman whose lover drowns at sea, but when Bravin sings 'Now they say / she still wanders in this place / all alone', his words sound utterly passionless.) 'Last Eleven', the final track, caused me similar problems: there's some lovely twelve-string-playing and a charming - all too brief - synth solo, but I kept thinking: where's the TUNE? (Perhaps my problems will be resolved if I ever get to hear a live performance of these songs, which should be made available on the 2025 live album ARE WE NEARLY THERE YET...)

To my relief, THE LIKES OF US also features 'classic BBT'. 'Oblivion' is a zesty tune; 'Bookmarks' is lovely and features some tasty violin; 'Love Is The Light' is corny but you can't get it out of your head; and 'Beneath the Masts', the most ambitious track of all, had me cheering. There is, of course, an underlying melancholy to it, but it features an exciting instrumental section (shades of E.L.P., with some excellent solos on guitar and violin). At the end of the piece, when a synth takes up the song's main theme, the music sounds wonderfully triumphant, and when Bravin intones the words 'The moon is rising', I even thought: here we have BBT at their most sublime!

So how to rate this album? I'm facing a familiar dilemma: 'three and a half stars really'... If you're a dedicated BBT fan, you'll definitely want this. Everyone else should first check out the far superior studio albums the band released between 2008 and 2018.

Social review comments

Review related links

• Send comments to fuxi
• Report this review (#3189408)
• Buy BIG BIG TRAIN music online with PA partners
• Show all BIG BIG TRAIN MP3/Stream
• Go to BIG BIG TRAIN page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to The Likes of Us page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for BIG BIG TRAIN related discussions