Big Deal – Say Yes

Big Deal's third album is a high-stakes affair. After a disasterous home robbery in 2014, the band lost a laptop containing the record's demos and were forced to re-write from scratch, losing their label in the process. 

It feels trite to spin a silver-lining story, but a fraught, focussed tension is stitched into every seam – Say Yes is an assertive, cathartic shout of independence. An understandably grittier attitude drives even the most understated of tracks, but blows full force on Avalanche: Alice Costello's vocals let rip, piercing the gloom, countered by a super glam guitar solo of Bond-theme proportions.

2013's June Gloom was a dazed take on all-consuming romance, and Say Yes sees those rose-tinted specs crunched underfoot: 'I won't tell you / that everything works out,' the duo warn, vocals twinned, on the title track. Almost-ballads Idyllwild and Lux offer razorsharp examples of the band's newly developed dramatic muscle, but it's when Big Deal turn in a legitimately sky-scraping indie anthem on V.I.T.R.I.O.L. that you know for sure this band have serious guts.