The Big Net are about to return with a full-length album, In the Service of Song. Set for release on Brooklyn’s Marbled Arm Records, the album is again rooted in classic country sensibilities, focusing not on experimentation or novelty but emotional urgency. “I like to think of these songs as modern folk songs,” Copeland explains. “These songs are not revolutionary. They are songs of grief, loss, empathy, and regret.”

This week sees the release of the lead single, ‘Cowboy’, giving a first glimpse as to what to expect. Rising out of a hesitant bass line, the song’s gentle rhythm and uncertain delivery lends wistful mood, though this is punctuated with shifts into something louder and more forceful. The result is almost childlike in tone, both in its defenceless honesty and sudden outbursts of energy. A naivety, the sense of not being in full control one’s feelings. A mood that fits into the themes of the track.

“This song is about immaturity, and toxic masculinity,” Copeland explains, “and sometimes where those two intersect.” Each of us has our child selves still inside, and it would be a crime to lose it, but to let it take over and allow ourselves to react to our surroundings with total immediacy is to let something unhealthy and unfair govern our moods. “People think that because they have their big pants on, and they go to work, and pay rent, that they are an adult,” Copeland continues, “that they are somehow magically wiser, when really they’re no more emotionally mature than they were at eighteen.” ‘Cowboy’ strips us back to this truth, showing how scared, frustrated and small we feel, no matter how impressive our horses might be, how shiny our boots.

In the Service of Song is out on 15th January via Marbled Arm Records and you can pre-order it now from The Big Net Bandcamp page.

Photo by Dallas Starky

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Both tracks were recorded over the same two days as the band’s self-titled debut, and follow the same aesthetic of stripped back folk rock made with minimal overdubs to capture what the label describe as the “freewheeling magnetism that can come alive in a room.” ‘Big Moon’ wraps this up in the languid air of a bittersweet country song, pedal steel rippling across the background like breeze across the prairie. Lyrically, the song takes inspiration from the tradition of lonesome country singers too, the opening line “I felt so upset last night as if nothing no one could console me,” feeling like it could have come from any time in the last eighty years.

With more weight, ‘Rufus’ injects a little more rock, although the drums are still more of a plod than a gallop. There’s a slight screw of weirdness in the sound too though, a sense that things aren’t quite centred that extends right through to the lyrics. “I go to the movies,” goes the second verse, “and I sit by myself. And I know when my dog died, that he went straight to hell.” The dovetailing of feeling and freakiness across the two tracks is achieved with graceful balance, and mark the band as one to watch. For The Big Net have cast themselves into the waters of classic country and rock, resurfacing with the very best features of the genres.

Big Moon is out now on Saddle Creek Records and you can get it from The Big Net Bandcamp page. There you can also find Trains, Angels, and Alcohol (Tragic Songs of Life), an EP of “folkloric covers” released last month that includes takes on The Louvin Brothers, Elizabeth Cotten, Gillian Welch and others.

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