THE BIG EVERYTHING

Originally known as "Babble", this band from the UK changed their name to "Babal" in 2012. They are a Crossover Prog band and have released 1 full length album in 2018, and 2 EPs, one in 2018 and one in April of 2019. The latter EP is known as "The Big Everything" and is comprised of 2 tracks that have a total run time of 28 minutes. The core line up has consisted of Karen Langley on vocals; Rob Williams on guitars and sythesizers; and Jon Sharp on drums. There are also some guest musicians on this EP, namely Paul Smith on bass on the first track, Zoie Green on keyboards on the 2nd track, and Ben Balsom on bass on the 2nd track. Karen and Rob also write the lyrics and music.

The first track is the title song for the album "The Big Everything" which is a 19 minute epic track. Chiming guitars and shimmering effects bring in the unique vocals, which are quite enticing. The lyrics are definitely not your standard rhyming lyrics and have some really great phrasing. They also don't follow any standard melody structure either, making them sound more poetic. During the vocal breaks, synth and guitar continue to give a somewhat psychedelic sound, and even utilizes a trance-like quality, yet the music doesn't hide behind a haze like most psychedelic music. Vocals are clear and easy to understand. Vocals are spread out evenly throughout the song, yet there is still time left to have instrumental sections also. The vocals also range from a chant-like style to melodic, but never following any real thematic structure, and sometimes both styles are layered together. The music flows with the same rhythm and tempo through the entire track, which lends itself even more towards the psychedelic/space rock style. There are textural changes in the different instrumental breaks (and even within the vocals) however, so over it's long play time, at least it strives to not become stagnant. Wordless vocals towards the last section of the track treat the voice as an improvising instrument.

"Beggars to Chance" is the 2nd track and is almost 9 minutes long. A faster drum beat bring in the soft guitar notes and synth effects as a nice groove is established. After a while, the guitar intensifies and continues to improvise. Vocals come in after 2 minutes. There are some interesting dissonant harmonies that go on here that keep things interesting. Later, some nice keyboards are added to soften things up a bit as the non-standard lyrical and thematic sounds continue. As before, the rhythm remains constant, while the vocals and improvisation parts bring about changes in style, tone and texture. Around 6 minutes, the rhythm drops out as the music and vocals carry the rest of the track to the end.

This is definitely an interesting sound, the lyrics and vocals are poetic, the rhythm constant in most cases and everything else responsible for bringing about variety through both of the long tracks. This is music that grows on you, that can have an effect on you like trance music, but still ever changing to keep you interested. I'm not sure if a full-length album would have made this a stronger release, but as it is, the biggest drawback is the shortness of it all. At least it intrigues me and makes me want to explore some of their other releases. This could almost be a 4 star release, but it just misses that mark.

Babal have had an interesting path to get to this point, combined with a refusal to conform to what anyone may actually expect of them. It is virtually impossible to pull together a complete discography as the guys live for their music and it is up to us to figure it out, and while they have been operating under the name Babal for some years they were previously known as Babble, and before that as Wise Children. In 2018 they released 'The Circle of Confusion of Tongues' which is the first part of a trilogy of albums. The second part is not a single album, but rather three EP's, which combine together. The first of these was "The Glacier", and "The Big Everything" is the second. The trio of Karen Langley (vocals), Rob Williams (guitars and synths) and Jon Sharp (drums) combine to form music which is a combination of performance art, space rock, krautrock, Talking Heads, RIO and experimentation to create something which is quite different to most other forms of progressive rock out there, but truly is that. For some reason they are listed on ProgArchives as crossover, but to my ears that is in the sense of them crossing over many sub genres as opposed to being the more commercial aspect that is normally associated with that sub, as this is eclectic in just so many way.

Just two songs on this EP, with the title cut being nearly 20 minutes in length and "Beggars To Chance" nearly 9. One thing I noticed with "The Big Everything" is that even though it is a long track, it certainly doesn't feel that way and I was soon dragged into the mysterious world which is Babal. Rob sent me a link to a live video of theirs, and as soon as I saw it everything fell into place and suddenly all their music made sense. The visual element of their music is incredibly important, and having now seen this, I know what they are doing. It meant I approached the two most recent releases quite differently to the album itself, which for some reason I never really got on top of, but now I understand the music far more. This is intriguing, complex, complicated, bringing in many different influences, and even atonal singing which makes total sense when it appears even if it is nothing like how Karen normally sounds. Well worth investigating.