- The Garage, Islington, London
Optimism is something that sets The Big Pink’s second album ‘Future This’ apart from their debut offering ‘A Brief History of Love’. It’s an optimism that’s partly rooted in the sound – the gloomy guitar fuzz has been pushed aside in favour of a more uplifting concoction of synths and more prominent beats. It’s not just that though, there is also an undeniable optimism present in the timing of the album’s release – we can easily see ‘Future This’ becoming the soundtrack to some serious summer lovin’, and it’s only January! Admittedly it’s much more an evocative of day trippin’ in the park than ‘Grease lightning’ – the album pumps out a handful of bulletproof anthems blended and contrasted thoughtfully with tracks like ‘The Palace’ and ‘77’ that delve a little deeper. And these venture into slightly darker places; after all, no highs are complete without their counterpart lows. The contrast isn’t confined solely to these tracks though, even some of the more bouncy tunes – ‘Rubbernecking’, for example – have a more solemn undertone than it might first seem. Needless to say, we’re great believers in going and checking these things out for yourselves so if you’re not convinced either way then why not have a listen and make up your own mind.
Aside from the more thoughtful tracks that really come into their own after a few listens, ‘Future This’ has its fair share of instantly loveable numbers – opener ‘Stay Gold’, ‘Hit The Ground (Superman)’ and ‘1313’ are what you’d consider to be the immediate stand-out crowd-pleasers. That being said, Milo (one half of the Big Pink) told us that the one to watch out for at the live shows is ‘Lose Your Mind’, so if you find yourselves at one of their gigs then get ready for an extended monster version of this particular tune.
On that note, now seems like the perfect time to tell you that we have some tickets to give away to the London leg of the upcoming Big Pink tour. They’re playing at The Garage in Islington on 20th February and all you have to do is head over to our Facebook page and ‘like’ the post about this article. You must be a ‘like-er’ of the Art Wednesday page to win, and we’ll be in touch with the winners in due course. Good luck!
For more on The Big Pink, [click here]
