As my last review of Bombay Bicycle Club (and if you’re lucky enough to know me, my entire music taste) indicates, I love a harmonic, folky, synth-heavy, and atmospheric repertoire. The Big Moon is the first British girl-band that fits these requirements, and my god is it nice to hear an alto London accent (!!!).
My favourite tracks from their 2020 album Walking Like We Do are Take A Piece and It’s Easy Then, both sound like half-full glasses. The four-piece band’s collective, harmonious voice sound like friends backing you up – supplementing the initially-gloomy central voice with hope. In the same way that Bombay Bicycle Club’s Whenever, Wherever feels safe, I’m home is actual medicine, with the best melodic lyrics.
My younger sister’s favourite is Your Light. It’s refreshing to find a whole album of earworms that you can attribute to specific memories. “Days like this / I forget / My darkness / And remember your light” reminds me of feeling extremely burnt out after spending three solid weeks in the library and spending the perfect evening with my sister seeing The Big Moon. This album, and especially their performance, has made me feel free when my standard habitat is Foucauldian. They were so much fun live and I’d highly recommend going to see them, even if you haven’t listened to them beforehand.
Another excellent earworm is Don’t Think which is literally coaching me through my anxiety: “If you have a gut feeling, maybe you should go with it this time”. Plus, any band that includes some flute (even if it’s electronically produced) will win me over, as seen on Barcelona. Phew, mama.
There are some songs my 2020 soundtrack is likely to do without: Holy Roller, ADHD, and Waves. These are downbeat and for now, The Big Moon is excellent at upbeat. That being said, they’re experimental – the former in lyrics and the latter in reworking a sea shanty, so I’ll probably revisit them.
The whole album feels very young and very 2020: forward-thinking enough to be present and account for personal and political anxieties. Why is simple and urban with fun additions of synth, while Dog Eat Dog offers a class analysis of London. I’d also highly recommend their self-deprecating and über-fun music videos. The Big Moon is an anti-neoliberal 90s girl band. We love to see it.
