big specia

Big Special's Joe Hicklin and Callum Moloney are finally ready to unleash their state-of-the-nation debut album

- NICK REILLY

"PROP ME UP in a greasy spoon / Under an English summer pale moon / Another desperate breakfast/Out of the rains of June," comes the distinctive growl of Big Special singer Joe Hicklin on 'Desperate Breakfast', one of the early stand-out tracks from the Black Country duo.

As those scathing lyrics suggest, Hicklin and drummer Callum Moloney are only too aware that, as Blur once attested, modern life is rubbish. But where others will trudge along in the monotonous minutiae of daily life, this pair are experts at dissecting our tumultuous times in a way that's rarely been done before, and finding unity in the bleakest of circumstances.

"I think that's the overall sentiment of our debut album (the upcoming POSTINDUSTRIAL BLUES)," says Hicklin. "We don't want to give any answers or say that we know the way. It's just us going, 'This is shit, we know it's shit, and you know it's shit, but let's try and do something together.""

There have been plenty of bands raising similar state-of-the-nation moments in recent years (see the brutal electronics of Teesside noisemakers Benefits), but it's the sonic palette of Big Special that makes them a truly exciting proposition.

That aforementioned track skips along with a haunting, Tom Waits-esque groove, while 'This Here Ain't Water' sees Hicklin transforming into the kind of God-fearing fire-and-brimstone preacher that you'd expect to see in the deep south of America. Elsewhere, the pounding 'Trees' bounces along with an electronic groove that buries itself within your skull after one listen.

Moloney and Hicklin first became friends when they were 17 but went on their own creative paths before being drawn back together under the lure of Big Special during lockdown, a decade after their first meeting.