Featuring writing contributions from several of its members, Welcome To The Planet sees Big Big Train retain its progressive roots but also creatively branch out and embrace influences from multiple other genres.
Coming just six months after the band's critically acclaimed top 40 release Common Ground, founder Gregory Spawton explains the short time between albums, "The experience of the pandemic has shown us that we need to make the best use of our time on Earth. With that in mind and with new band members on board giving us a fresh head of steam, we decided on a speedy return to the studio to write and record Welcome To The Planet."
The album's opener 'Made From Sunshine', co-written by guitarist Dave Foster and singer David Longdon, has guitar lines redolent of Johnny Marr and vocal harmonies reminiscent of the Finn Brothers/Crowded House, with violinist Clare Lindley sharing lead vocals with Longdon.
Elsewhere on the album, keyboard player Carly Bryant gets her first Big Big Train writing credit and lead vocal on the captivating title track. The two recent singles 'The Connection Plan' and 'Lanterna' are included along with a winter themed song 'Proper Jack Froster', a bittersweet tale of childhood. The album is completed by the delicate acoustic 'Capitoline Venus', the beautiful 'Oak And Stone' and a pair of dazzling instrumentals, 'A Room With No Ceiling' and 'Bats In The Belfry', written by guitarist/keyboardist Rikard Sjoblom and drummer Nick D'Virgilio respectively.
Big Big Train have announced that they will release a new single, Bats In The Belfry. It will be the final single taken from the band's upcoming album Welcome To The Planet, which is released through their English Electric Recordings label on January 28.
"Bats In The Belfry is the final single we will be making available in advance of the Welcome To The Planet album which will be released on 28th January 2022," the band have said. "BITB is an instrumental penned by our drummer Nick D'Virgilio."
"Big Big Train has many songs where the drum parts are challenging and we have a few instrumentals now, but I wanted to write something to really give me the room to stretch out on the drums," adds D'Virgilio. "I wanted the song to be fast but groovy. I've also enjoyed writing more specific parts for our brass ensemble.
"The song started with the bass line and grew from there. Next came the main melody in the opening section. From there I was off to the races. I was able to add fast 'drum-n-bass' style drum solos over the top of some nice counterpoint brass lines, a rocking middle part, and an end section where I changed the beat around just for fun.
"One thing I have to say is that no matter what I throw at this band they can handle it and then some. The first time I heard Rikard's 'surf' sounding guitar on the fast middle section I burst out laughing with musical joy!"
