Big Big Train announce new Scop EP as companion to upcoming Bard reissue

(Image credit: English Electric Recordings)

Big Big Train have announced they will release a new EP, Scop, as a companion to their upcoming reissue of their 2002 album Bard, on March 21, the same day Bard is reissued for the very first time through English Electric Recordings.

The new EP takes its title from the old English word for Bard, and will feature five demos from the Bard recording sessions plus The Sundial. This latter song was written and demoed in 2001 but has been newly recorded by three members of the band’s current line-up - Alberto Bravin (lead vocals), Gregory Spawton (guitars, keyboards, bass) and Nick D’Virgilio (drums) - and mixed by the band's longstanding engineer Rob Aubrey.

Four of the five Scop demos – The Last English King, Her Words, This Isn’t Rocket Science and Blacksmithing – are being made available for the very first time, while the demo of British Racing Green was originally released to members of the band’s Passengers Club in 2021.

Bard, which has been unavailable for many years, has been completely remixed by Aubrey. It was the band's third album, recorded by a line-up of Martin Read (vocals), Tony Müller (keyboards and vocals), Phil Hogg (drums), Ian Cooper (keyboards), Andy Poole (bass) and Greg Spawton (guitar, keyboards).

All four demos on Scop feature Read on lead vocals, while the Bard studio versions of The Last English King and Blacksmithing were sung by keyboardist Tony Müller. Her Words does not feature on Bard, while This Isn’t Rocket Science went on to become a section of the song For Winter on the album. Finally, British Racing Green did not emerge until the band’s 2010 Far Skies Deep Time EP and was sung by the late David Longdon.

Scop will be released exclusively as a digital download only via the Big Big Train Bandcamp page.

Pre-order Bard.

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.