ALBUM REVIEW – BIG SPECIAL – ”NATIONAL AVERAGE.“
- HARRY K
- Jul 14
- 2 min read
BIG SPECIAL
NATIONAL AVERAGE.
Out Now
WORDS HARRY K
When Big Special unexpectedly dropped their sophomore album NATIONAL AVERAGE. on July 4th, it didn’t just feel like a surprise release—it felt like a declaration. Arriving just a year after their explosive debut Postindustrial Hometown Blues, this new record sharpens their sound, deepens their fury, and proves the Black Country duo are more than just another post-punk success story.
Right from the jagged, spoken-word opener “THE MESS.”, you’re thrust into a bleak, funny, and furious world where tribal drums and synth buzzes pulse under Joe Hicklin’s gravel-voiced poetry. He delivers lines with a theatrical rage, but it’s never just shouting for shouting’s sake—there’s clarity, rhythm, and purpose behind every syllable.
The album brims with twitchy punk-funk and brooding industrial rhythm. “GOD SAVE THE PONY.” marries a taut, five-note groove with existential weight; “SHOP MUSIC.” lurches with satirical bite, ridiculing the drudgery of retail life while sounding weirdly euphoric. Their talent for balancing intensity with humour shines in “PROFESSIONALS.” where Hicklin snarls, “We use ‘fuck’s for commas, to make everything sad sound fucking funny,” before deadpanning “lol.” It’s that contrast—funny but bleak, poetic but pissed off—that makes the band feel so real, so grounded.
Across the album, there's a jagged kind of beauty. “HUG A BASTARD.” trades in heavy trip-hop textures, while “GET BACK SAFE.” thunders like a protest march led by a marching band from hell. “PIGS PUDDIN.” simmers like a cursed nursery rhyme, unsettling and danceable all at once. Yet there’s space for gentler moments too: “THE BEAST.” finds power in silence and space, like a man standing still in a storm, while the closer “THIN HORSES.”—featuring a haunting guest vocal—offers a moment of broken calm, an exhale after all the noise.
This isn’t a band trying to clean up their act for the second album. If anything, they’ve made something weirder, darker, and more thoughtful. The funk influences hit harder. The lyrical bite is even more acute. The chaos is better controlled, but still threatening to erupt at any moment. It’s an album full of contradictions: funny and devastating, danceable and miserable, angry and oddly comforting.
Big Special have always stood apart, and NATIONAL AVERAGE. only widens the gap between them and their peers. This is a record that refuses to play nice. It’s a howl of guilt, ambition, failure, and survival wrapped in punishing drums and snarling poetry. It captures that strange British sensation of laughing while everything’s on fire—and loving the noise of it.
If you’re into Yard Act, Sleaford Mods, Fontaines D.C., Viagra Boys, or anything that blends punk with poetry, anger with vulnerability, NATIONAL AVERAGE. is essential. It's not just a second album. It’s a reckoning.
9/10
BIG SPECIAL - NATIONAL AVERAGE. album tracklisting
1. THE MESS.
2. GOD SAVE THE PONY.
3. HUG A BASTARD.
4. SHOP MUSIC.
5. PIG'S PUDDIN.
6. PROFESSIONALS.
7. GET BACK SAFE.
8. YES BOSS.
9. DOMESTIC BLISS.
10. JUDAS SONG.
11. THE BEAST.
12. I ONCE HAD A KESTRAL.
13. THIN HORSES.
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