A STONE'S THROW FROM THE LINE

This album is very high quality. Not only are the performances excellent, but these are among the very best of Big Big Trains' compositions. However, I have a hard time giving this five stars, because the songs are played so close to the studio versions. Only Nick D'Virgilio's excellent drum solo is really new. Ok, a few of the guitar solos are played a bit differently, and Rachel Hall plays violin here, so that adds a slightly different sound to select parts of the album. But on the whole, this plays is pretty straight. Given how talented the band is, I would have liked to see them try and interpret their own music a bit differently. Perhaps extend some of the pieces, or truncate/medley them, or add new parts, or sing parts without instrumentation, etc. This wouldn't need to happen on every track - even if they just mashed up a couple, so one could say "but you really got to hear this live version - its so different". Alas, such is not the case. What we have here is excellent performances of essentially the studio versions. An enjoyable collection, but not quite five stars on account of creativity. I give this album 8.8 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to high 4 PA stars.

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