2012 Top Ten: 10. Big Big Train - English Electric (part one)

To kick things off I thought I'd post my top ten albums of 2012 over the last few days of the year - assuming the Mayans aren't correct in which case I think we'll have only got to number 5 before it all goes belly up! :-)

I don't think 2012 has been a vintage year musically, there have been some good releases but generally not as many as in 2011.

Kicking off my 2012 top ten is Big Big Train's English Electric (part one)...

Big Big Train are a band I know nothing much about and have never seen, but lots of prog friends were raving about it and so I decided to give it a spin (mind you they all raved about It Bites, Rush and Storm Corrosion so maybe I should have been a bit more wary!)

The album is a pretty good collection of songs with a definite old school seventies prog feel with echoes of seventies Genesis and a bit of Tull folkiness thrown in. Some songs sounded like they have a Spock's Beard influence to my untutored ear.

Quite a mellow album, whilst I do like my bands to remember they are supposed to rock on occasion, it is something of a retro-chill out pleasure and I am looking forward to part two next year.

Track wise The First Rebreather and Winchester From St Giles' Hill stand out for me, you can hear the former below...