BIG SPECIAL - Postindustrial Hometown Blues (CD)

Words are not to be taken for granted. Especially when they're being
bellowed, full blast, by a broad-shouldered poet with the brimstone fire of a
preacher and the honesty and wisdom of a layman, over ground-shaking
live beats and between anthemic blasts of melody and rousing riffage.
Words matter. History matters. People matter. And BIG SPECIAL matter.
For BIG SPECIAL - Joe Hicklin (vocals) and Callum Moloney (drums) - their
sound is one that comes from vital, frustrated young working-class voices
that don't always get heard on the scale they should do. It's a frustration
that comes to the fore through a voice that is at times coarse and raw, but
sensitive, desperate and soulful at others. Hicklin's brimstone-fired voice
marches from guttural punk barks and serrated spoken word to soaring
soul and back again, arriving siphoned from their forebears, crushed under
the weight of history, and retooled for a new generation. It's wrought, raw
and angry at a world lacking options, the thinning of the common
understanding between the social classes of England, exasperation at
repeating cycles, and the feeling that you're watching your own life unfold
from the outside.
These are songs that channel that voice you hear when you look in the
mirror and see your true self - fight songs for a world gone wrong.