By admin 
Big Special have surprise released a new album and shared funky single ‘God Save The Pony’. Find full details below.
The Black Country punk duo comprised of Joe Hicklin and Callum Moloney, have dropped their new record ‘National Average’ after teasing the artwork for it – a plate of egg and chips – across various landmarks in London. You can listen to it below.
The follow up to 2024’s ‘Post Industrial Hometown Blues’ loses none of the band’s “early fire or potency, and instead expands their sound to incorporate elements of funk, lavishing it with their characteristic darkness and black humour, honestly representing their lives in the only way they know how. It focuses on brotherhood, pressing on through the changes in their lives, big and small.” according to a press release.
The band have also shared the video for their new single ‘God Save The Pony’, which you can also view below.
Lead singer Joe Hicklin said of their new single:“‘God Save The Pony’ is about the stones we carry. The different things that pull people down; the invisible weights that they have to drag through their everyday.
“On the personal level, it’s about reckoning with change, reflecting on the moral obligations we have to ourselves and others and the mixture of the failures and successes in sticking to those. The weight of following a personal moral line is heavy on everyone’s shoulders.”
He added: “The song is a recognition of this strain in ourselves and others, and a well wish to keep going, whatever you have that drags behind.“
Of the album, he added: “‘National Average’ is an album about the multitudes of a normal life as it begins to change. It’s about the stages of reflection on an average life as it moves further away. It’s about personal and political problems remaining the same as a life changes around them and they all begin to weave together.”
The duo recently announced a series of UK dates in 2026 starting on February 13 at The Waterfront in Norwich on February 13, followed by Nottingham, Newcastle, Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton, London and Dublin before finishing at the Ulster Sports Club in Belfast on March 7.
Support for the UK shows will come from GANS, Liz Lawrence and Good Health Good Wealth and all tickets are on sale now – find yours here.
Revewing their 2024 debut album ‘Post Industrial Hometown Blues’, NME awarded the record four stars and described it as “a heady dose of heart and reality”.
The post Big Special return with surprise new album ‘National Average’ and funky single ‘God Save The Pony’ appeared first on NME.