Reviews

When a band finally puts out a recording after five years, the first thought from anyone is going to be “this better be good.” For those of you who didn’t read the Punkbands.com exclusive interview with Big Wig, New Jersey’s finest did not break up, nor did they even consider it.  For five long years, Tom and Keith kept their dream alive, bringing Zach and then Jeff into the Big Wig family and then settling down to write and record “Reclamation,” a symbol of struggling for five years and coming out of it just as hard, loud and fast as before and a big fuck you to fifteen minutes of fame.
 
“A War Inside” is the refreshingly catchy socio-political anthem we were all waiting for with its aggressive lyrics and pumping guitars that lead straight into “Owned and Operated,” a song about “another four years of poverty and war,” and “Outer Rings” hits hard with lyrics like “Drowning in the chaos and the flames that we create/Glorify defeat/And the story’s incomplete/Put your head between your knees and watch your history repeat.”  Towards the middle of the record, “Rat Race” tones things down just a little and offers a more melodic Big Wig before the title track punches us in the face.
 
 “No Thought, No Spine,” covers the heartlessness of corporate America (Wal-Mart, anyone?) and “Last Song Last Call” is the getting drunk, playing shows and hanging out with your friends distraction from all the heavy political stuff.  It just goes to show that everyone’s got to have fun once in a while and after all these years, Big Wig can still have a message, can still fight for what they believe in and can still have a good fucking time while doing so.
 
It’s hard to criticize something when you’re just so filled with happiness that it even exists.  Yes, it’s good to have this band back. Come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever actually run into anyone who had anything bad to say about Big Wig or this record in particular.  Perhaps an important lesson to all the up and coming bands losing their souls in contracts and dollar signs is that when you strip everything down to exactly what personally matters in music, and you make it really come from your hearts as a band, all it can ever be is exactly what you want it to be.  It’s just Big Wig. That’s all.