The Big Moon - Walking Like We Do

The Guardian 80

(Fiction)
The indie quartet are in a bright mood, though Juliette Jackson can be devastatingly sharp on the disappointments of contemporary womanhood

Endearing indie outfits announcing that they’re going pop is rarely cause for celebration. The sense that they feel strong-armed into it by commercial pressures is generally in inverse proportion to their ability to pull it off. But the Big Moon have actually done it, after a fashion. Since earning a Mercury nomination for their chipper, grungy 2017 debut album, Love in the 4th Dimension, the London four-piece haven’t copied some of their peers’ vain attempts to pay homage to teenage Destiny’s Child obsessions, or to replicate Max Martin’s studio arsenal in their bedrooms. Walking Like We Do vaults back a few more pop generations to the brassy bonhomie, dry wit and shabby music hall charm of acts such as Dexys, or even Elton John at his brightest.

Pitchfork 68

The UK quartet pairs glowing synth pads and layered harmonies with a distinctly millennial approach to the possibility of total annihilation.

The Guardian 60

(Fiction)

There was certainly no shortage of competent and unimaginative indie rock in the late 2010s. But the debut album by the Big Moon – 2017’s Love in the 4th Dimension – swerved a landfill indie fate thanks to the band’s innate tunefulness and the assured songwriting of frontwoman Juliette Jackson. They snagged a Mercury nomination instead.

This second outing finds the Big Moon straining at the confines of the guitar band configuration. The first track released from Walking Like We Do – It’s Easy Then – dropped a big clue about the band’s chosen trajectory, with a soaring chorus and a video animation of the song’s central instrument: the piano. Take a Piece, meanwhile, channels 90s pop anthemics without shame.