From the first fuzzy, bass-driven punches of THE MESS, you know NATIONAL AVERAGE isn’t just a second album – it’s a mission statement. It’s groovier, sharper and somehow even more emotionally dense than their debut. BIG SPECIAL haven’t just levelled up, they’ve scrambled the whole rulebook and served it with a side of egg and chips.
This 13-track follow-up to Postindustrial Hometown Blues clocks in at 46 minutes, and not a second feels wasted. There’s movement in every beat, clarity in the chaos and a noticeable shift from full throttle rage to something deeper – an uncomfortable but honest reckoning with growth, guilt and the bittersweet taste of progress.
Lead single GOD SAVE THE PONY sets the tone perfectly: black country humour laced through bitter truths, wrapped in twitchy percussion and sharp lyrical hooks. Joe and Callum’s knack for crafting anthems that sound like working-class manifestos screamed from pub car parks is still intact. Thank god.
Throughout NATIONAL AVERAGE, BIG SPECIAL wrestles with a central dilemma: what happens when you start to get everything you ever wanted, and still feel hollow? It’s all there in SHOP MUSIC, a twisted banger that bites back at the industry machine. ‘Exposure doesn’t pay and you can’t eat art’ might be delivered with a smirk, but it cuts deep. ‘Is it too much to ask for a number one hit single?’ Joe asks. Hicklin asks, deadpan. We don’t think so.
There’s more groove here, too – a shift that suits them. The industrial edges are still there, of course, but now they’re married to sleazy basslines and it sounds. HUG A BASTARD is tailor-made for mosh pits and group chants (the ‘1 for a fiver, 2 for a pound’ line is already legendary). It’s unhinged in the best way – a proper fry up of sound, no filler.
Visually, the greasy spoon aesthetic ties it all together. Fried eggs. Cheap chips and china. Existential dread served with builder’s tea. The Dinked Edition vinyl is already iconic – yellow splatter on transparent wax like yolk on a cracked plate. Art direction on point.
But NATIONAL AVERAGE doesn’t just revel in dark humour and northern grit, it also knows when to breathe. THIN HORSES, featuring the ethereal vocals of Rachel Goswell, floats in like a soft breeze after a hailstorm. It’s a gentle end to a heavy, emotionally brutal record. Hicklin’s voice and Goswell’s beats blend like fog. A perfect curtain call.
Lyrically, this album digs into identity, purpose, disappointment and the weird guilt that comes with success. It’s not trying to be a rags-to-riches story; it’s more honest than that. It’s the sound of two blokes realising the clouds don’t always part just because you get your big break. And yet, they press on.
BIG SPECIAL aren’t afraid to evolve and, more importantly, they’re not afraid to laugh while doing it. NATIONAL AVERAGE is proof you can make music that’s angry and artful, groovy and grimy, tragic and triumphant. It’s punk with poetry. Sadness with sauce.
NATIONAL AVERAGE is out now on all platforms. Grab the vinyl if you can – before it’s poached.. 🍳
