Big Science's Big Noise
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on May 30, 2012 8:20PM
Big Science has released a couple promising EPs over the last few years, but it's only now that they've finally put out a debut full-length album, Difficulty. During their existence they've gained a deserved reputation as a strong live act and their shows inspire more dancing than head-bobbing. Difficulty is chock full of tunes hewing to the group's signature sound, a mixture of new wave and more aggressive '80s-style rockin'. While the songs pack a wallop most of the time there's not a whole lot of sonic variety here, and what is a strength on something the length of an EP begins to grow slightly tiring when it's stretched out over 40 minutes. One of the things that makes their stage shows so excellent is the group's dynamic, and their ability to add nuance and switch the speed of the proceedings up offering an expert touch of variety to keep the crowd's attention.
Singularly, most of the songs on the album are winners, with "No One Ever Wakes Up" and "Blind Our Eyes" marking themselves as particular stand-outs and examples of what Big Science does best. And while we recommend taking in Difficulty as a whole and drawing your own conclusions, we found it most reward when we return to it in smaller doses. This leads us to believe the band's songwriting is as strong as ever, they just need to learn how to switch it up a little more when putting together longform pieces of work.
However we have no desire to see them pull back onstage at all, and we expect the band's album release party at The Burlington tonight will be a raucous one. So catch the show, pick up the new album and let us know what you think of the band's debut effort.