THE DIFFERENCE MACHINE

"The Difference Machine" revolves around three long songs of about 13 minutes each. Between these songs are very short songs that serve as breathing space. One of these short songs is actually called 'Breathing Space.' I think it takes guts to make a CD like this because if one of those long songs missed the mark than it would drag down the whole CD. But Big Big Train mange to do a fine job with the long tracks and they really go somewhere emotional. The CD lyrics are ambiguous. This is a concept album about chaos theory, a planet dying, and two lovers falling apart. I do not think that the ambiguity hurts the CD. Instead of being crystal clear the lyrics hint at the destruction that is about to happen. Two of the songs have the word 'hope' in them, 'Hope This Finds You' and 'Hope You Made It.' And the climax of the CD is the powerful 'Saltwater Falling on Uneven Ground' with the words 'Do you remember those summer nights? / The days without end exploding into fire.' But despite the word hope being used often, the tone of the music and the thoughtful lyrics are full of impending destruction and decay. The CD has this strong sense of yearning or longing to keep things the way they were, even singer talks about the planet exploding in fire. There are a whole bunch of guest musicians here and the make wonderful contributions. This CD has Sean Filkins singing lead vocals, not the band's new singer David Longdon just to be clear. But to my ear both singers are fantastic at what they do.