“Our songs are reactive,” says Callum Moloney, one-half of the bluesy, post-punk duo Big Special. “They’re loud, and they’re fun, and they’re honest and emotional.” Alongside singer Joe Hicklin, the Birmingham-based band have been making waves in the U.K. for their poetic, lyrically revealing music. Grooving to a fusion of folk, grunge, electronic, blues, and rock, Big Special are serving up a narrative close to home — stories of coming up in working class, industrial families in Black Country, and living in a country experiencing an ever-worsening depression. The idea of depression, both fiscal and emotional, permeates Big Special’s songs, resounding through their multi-layered sonic landscape and giving them a soulful, Tom Waits-style quality. However, without shying away from tales of darkness and a divided Britain, Big Special’s boisterous, gospel-like delivery shows that music can always be an uplifting force — whatever its depth and weight may be.
On May 10, the band will release their brutal and punch-packing debut album, aptly titled Postindustrial Hometown Blues, via SO Recordings. The first single, “Dust Off/Start Again,” unabashedly tackles English class issues, with gusto. They gave us a delirious and dark taste of what’s to come with the full-length. And today, they’re taking it further — releasing the music video to accompany the album’s second single, “BLACK DOG / WHITE HORSE,” which spirals deeper inward, recoiling from the outward, environmental discomfort and unpacking the internal.
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“‘BLACK DOG / WHITE HORSE’ is about fear, about rumination, intrusive thoughts, and cycles of depression,” Hicklin says. “It’s about trying to figure out how to reach out when feelings of guilt and shame take hold. It’s about recognizing these things in others, noticing the lost and undervalued, and their increasing numbers.” Unraveling the process, he continues, “It comes from a thing I wrote years ago, about a burning snake traveling in the hot sun and a small wren flying high above it to block the heat and give it shade, taking the burden of the sun, because the little bird loves the snake and won’t see it defeated, for whatever reason.”
The video, premiering on AP below, also stars actor Kate Dickie of Game of Thrones, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Loki, to name a few. On why the project felt right for her, Dickie, a fan of the band, says, “Big Special’s beauty and brilliance shines out in their lyrics, music, and visuals — I just love them. I don’t say this hardly ever, but I feel good about [“BLACK DOG / WHITE HORSE”]. We made it with such passion and commitment and fun, and that is just the most special thing of all.”
