The second in John Mitchell’s astronaut trilogy
With 2015’s “Please Come Home” record, John Mitchell began what he planned to be a Lonely Robot trilogy which would see a central astronaut character telling his story.
The It Bites man did it in an interesting way given that it wasn’t a “concept album” as such, rather it had a thread linking the songs together.
And although, “The Big Dream” is a very different collection to its predecessor, the premise is the same here. The narrative enhances things rather than requiring the album to slavishly hang on to it.
On this, the Astronaut is no longer in space, rather he’s woken from a lengthy cryogenic sleep and is back on earth. Wherever the record goes thereafter in never forgets this fact.
As with most of these things, though, the be all and end all is not the story, but rather whether the songs are good enough and – although there was never going to be much doubt given Mitchell’s pedigree – “The Big Dream” clears this hurdle with the most consummate of ease.
Bookended with a Prologue and Epilogue, the other nine tracks are what we are really interested in and right from “Awakenings” to “Hello World Goodbye” this is very special indeed.
Those two represent not just the journey the character takes, but the listener too, given that the former is a piece of lush, modern prog rock, with the latter adding a more stark, electronic element.
As before, Mitchell plays all the instruments himself (except the drums, these are handled by his Frost* colleague Craig Blundell) and his understated skills as a guitarist are to the fore on “Sigma” which is one of the highlights here.
Happy to do piano led as often as relying on the guitar, the gorgeous “In Floral Green” also boasts an effortlessly catchy chorus, while the first single from the album, “Everglow” is almost a microcosm of what makes “….Dream” so good. Superbly well-conceived, brilliantly played, as well as thoroughly compelling and varied.
Interestingly what it isn’t is too long. Where a lot of prog feels the need to stretch out over lengthy soundscapes that isn’t the case here. Most of the cuts are around the five-minute mark, but as in the case of “False Lights” with its interesting vocal patterns, they don’t suffer from the relative brevity.
“Symbolic” ushers itself into the party with dazzling electronics, while “The Divine Art Of Being” is different again, being made for widescreen with its ambitious keyboards and the title track – comfortably the longest thing on offer – does it’s near instrumental with a mighty, overbearing feel of grandiosity – but gets it just right
The same could largely be said of the album.
Mitchell has already said he is planning a third in the Lonely Robot series and has called this his Busman’s Holiday project.
That feel of it being something he loves to do rather than has to do is all over “The Big Dream”. This sense of taking chances and allowing himself to go where the music leads him, makes this a gem.
Rating 8.5/10
