Got the cd yesterday and really enjoyed having a proper listen on headphones with the lyrics to read at the same time. My current impression is that I will happily skip the first 3 tracks and then reorder the rest of the songs a little. I too am not keen on the low vocals on All the Love and find Black with Ink quite unappealing. I'll see how much more it grows on me in the coming days...
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I too really enjoy 'Atlantic Cable' and 'Endnotes' quite a bit, definitely the standouts. I have to say I do really enjoy 'Strangest Times' and 'Dandelion Clock' as well, but haven't really settled with the rest yet, though there is some pretty cool instrumental music. Maybe the different writers accounts for the lack of consistency of later albums, where 'The Underfall Yard' was pretty much all written by Greg Spawton, and the few contributions of David Longdon on the English Electric albums (Uncle Jack, Swan Hunter and Leopards) are a very nice compliment to all of the material written by Greg. I don't think anything on the new one hits me as much as Kingmaker, Seen Better Days, Winchester From St. Giles Hill, or East Coast Racer though.
^^ Count me in as one who mostly prefers Greg’s compositions, but then they are the more overtly progressive cuts.
The first track Strangest Times keeps putting me in mind of Jackson Browne’s Running On Empty, I’m not too sure why, must be a tempo thing.
All the Love You Can Give is sounding better to me now somehow...
Originally Posted by Steve983
Yep, if taken from Track 4 (Dandelion) onward, it's an EXCELLENT album. I like the chances taken in Black with Ink too, though it's very uneven and overall only somewhat successful.
I am an historian and the author of a book called 'Webster & Horsfall & the Atlantic Cable' (2020). Gregory Spawton has said that the book encouraged him to write his song 'Atlantic Cable.' In between reminiscensing about the fiendish cross country runs through Sutton Park that we had to undertake at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, I told Gregory that I was writing a book about the Atlantic Cable. A huge quantity of correspondence sent out by Webster & Horsfall - the business that manufactured the armouring for the cable - had been deposited at the Library of Birmingham & was crying out to be examined. It is very unusual for the papers of businessmen to have survived - politicians & poets, yes, but not businessmen.
Gregory immediately saw the subject matter as ideal for BBT. He told me that he hoped inspiration would strike. I admit to being surprised when, a few months later, he told me that inspiration had indeed struck. In January, after the song had been mixed, he sent it to me. When I was writing the book, I had always known about the sheer scale of the achievement of the men who designed, manufactured & laid the first cable across the Atlantic. But the song brought it home even more powerfully. I often find a memorable line in Gregory's lyrics & here it is, 'The cable will hold.' It seemed to capture so well the fears of the men who laid the cable that it would fail & their hopes that it wouldn't.
The inner circle around BBT regard 'Atlantic Cable' as one of the best songs Gregory has written. I think they are right.
^Very cool! Thanks for sharing.
I want to dynamite your mind with love tonight.
Reading this thread makes me more and more curious about this album, but I still haven't digested Grand Tour.
I'm always one album late with BBT. Auto-buy, but not quite yet.
I look forward to hearing Atlantic Cable, as it seems to have all the right ingredients for a good Greg Spawton epic.
Thank you for sharing all of that. It probably is one of the best songs he's written. Whether it turns out to be among my very favorites will take time to tell, there's a lot there, and it's a wonderful concept. Not an epic, but 'Seen Better Days' I enjoyed on first listen, but it took time, maybe a couple years even, to develop into one of my favorite BBT songs ever. I hope Atlantic Cable does the same and it (as well as Endnotes) have the potential.
Lovely to see that the train ended the week with a number 31 album in the U.K. charts, their highest peak yet. What a journey it has been to get there.
Half page spread in the current issue of the Financial Times about prog, with Steve Howe & Gregory Spawton interviewed. Includes huge colour photo of BBT in action.
Prog Futures are up!
The photograph of BBT in the FT is huge (33cm x 12 cm)
The photograph of Genesis is miniscule (5.5cm x5cm)
So there we have it: BBT are bigger than Genesis!
Here's a good recent interview with Greg.
"A hippy album" - & other interesting reflections from Gregory. Enjoyed listening to the interview - thanks.
I think my view of Common Ground is now settled. Personally I don't think it's as strong as The Grand Tour but then I will cut the band a bit of slack since they had 4 band members leaving and had to record the album remotely due to various lockdown restrictions. I haven't changed my mind re the first three tracks which I skip every time; Strangest Times is ok but I don't need to hear it many times to get the gist while All The Love and Black With Ink I find are really dull and outstay their welcome. As someone else said if you start with Dandelion Clock then you've got a really good 44 minute album. The title track, Atlantic Cable and Endnotes are all superb and indeed the epic I think will reveal more and more joys with each play for a while yet to come.
This perfectly sums up my view of the album. I really don’t like that second track, but those instrumentals are to die for. A solid album barring the first three.
^The band feel, the prominent Hammond, the instrumental sections--those first three songs help make the album for me.
Part of my problem with Grand Tour (and, to a lesser extent, everything after the English Electric albums) is there's too much instrumentation. The individual players get lost.
On Common Ground, there's room for each player to shine. Those solo sections with Spawton's big Ric sound are back. Plus, I just like Rikard as a guitarist better than Gregory. (Ducks! Run away!) Don't get me wrong; I love XTC, but chances are I love Beardfish/Gungfly/Rikard more--hearing his phrasings and arrangements is a big plus on this album for me. Just listen to his "metal" guitar on the instrumental section beginning around minute 4:00 on "All the Love." That's my kind of jam!
I want to dynamite your mind with love tonight.
I have to say that having lived with the album a while now, even those songs I didn't connect with at first have grown on me. I still think the second half is so much stronger and is where I will return more often, but there are some ear-worms in those first songs. I still can't get used to that deeper Longdon vocal though!
I don't get what all the fuss is about regarding David's low vocals. I was expecting something much more different. It's still unmistakeably David to me.
And whilst we are on the subject of vocals ... a shout-out for Carly Bryant who sings throughout much of the album & really adds something to the songs.
^ I liked Carly's contributions, but I have to admit that I do miss Rachel's vocals. I know she did not sing that much in the studio, but she was revelatory in the live context on the last tour.
I like it because I sing along in baritone
I like her accent, which is different. I don’t know UK dialects, just that there are different ones.
I'm on the fence buying this yet until it's more digested and more long term reviews come in. I didn't like those first few songs at all.
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A gentleman is defined as someone who knows how to play the accordion, and doesn't.
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