This is the debut album by American trio A Big Goodbye, and was released in 2011. Now, that is bad news as it means that I missed it when it first came out but the good news is that the next one is due very soon! This is the first in a three album series, with the overall theme on this one being about emptiness. Lyrically it deals with relationship struggles, particularly “The Great Divide”. The final song on the album, “Memories” is also the longest at fourteen minutes. This is about the main character, who having killed the woman who betrayed him is now contemplating killing himself. Together they had a child called “Autumn”, which will be a song on the next album. The story has deliberately been chopped about so that it is not in sequence, rather like Saga’s “Chapters”.
So for their debut they decided that from the off it was going to be a trilogy, and if that isn’t a strong statement of self-belief, how about the music they have pulled together to accompany the words? The band itself is comprised of multi-instrumentalist Matt Glisson, his brother Andrew on drums and singer Daniel Mills plus three guests, Adam Cambria (sax), Joseph Castleberry (trumpet) and Paul Boatwright (trombone). Yep, here we have a prog band that have brought in a brass section. If that wasn’t enough, how about complex math-rock sections where they come across as Protest The Hero, combined with complex prog metal where they are Dream Theater, or dramatic acoustic where musically (if not vocally) they are Roy Harper. Often all in the same song! Daniel has a strong clear voice and sometimes it is only his vocals that are keeping it all together as the band splits and changes in a myriad of different directions. If you want a dramatic emotional rollercoaster of a prog album then this is it.
There is no doubt that this is one of the most exciting debuts I have ever come across. Roll on the next one!
