Big Big Train - The Likes Of Us (2024) CD-Rip

The Likes of Us is the fifteenth studio album by English progressive rock band Big Big Train, released on 1 March 2024. It is the band's first album of new material with singer Alberto Bravin and keyboardist Oskar Holldorff who joined in 2022 and 2023 respectively, as well as the first album since The Difference Machine without singer David Longdon, who died in 2021. It is their first album to be released on progressive label InsideOut Music, which the band signed to in July 2023, having self released several of their albums before.

The anxiously-awaited unveiling of ‘The Likes Of Us’ follows BIG BIG TRAIN’s massively successful recent European tour, which saw them perform 17 concerts across nine countries, concluding with two triumphant appearances at London’s Cadogan Hall. The album is a stunning piece of work that retains all the elements that make the band so special, including absorbing and memorable arrangements and first-rate musicianship.

Definitions aside, BIG BIG TRAIN are a big fish in their chosen pond. Back in 2021, the group’s album ‘Common Ground’ returned prog rock to the UK national Top 40 chart. “First and foremost Big Big Train are a rock band, but we are absolutely a prog band, too,” bassist/co-founder Gregory Spawton declares. “We are very conscious of the traditions that we follow; we have never dissed them and we never will. The fact that we put classic-sounding prog back into the charts is absolutely fantastic.”

On the group’s recent tour, two selections from ‘The Likes Of Us’ – ‘Oblivion’ and ‘Love Is The Light’ – were introduced to an ecstatic audience response. During a tidal wave of rebirth and celebration, Bravin was accepted as one of the family. Indeed, the band’s ever-evolving chemistry has delivered mouth-watering results. “We’ve got a great mix of people that want to be here and go the extra mile to do something very special,” drummer Nick D’Virgilio comments. “There’s a big world of talented musicians out there, and luckily some of them want to hang out with us.”