Big Big Train - Gathering Speed (2004) {2009, Remastered Reissue}

Gathering Speed is the fourth studio album of the English progressive rock band, Big Big Train. It was released in 2004 by Treefrog Records. It is dedicated to the airmen and women who lost their lives in the Battle of Britain. The song The Road Much Further On was originally titled You Can't Draw Love. It was inspired by Spawton's then seven-year-old daughter. The album as a whole was a return to progressive rock for the band. It is the first album in which Sean Filkins recorded vocals, replacing Martin Read. It is also the only album in which Laura Murch recorded vocals, and the only Big Big Train album not to feature any songs solely written by Greg Spawton.

Big Big Train are an English progressive rock band formed in Bournemouth in 1990. The current line-up consists of Robin Armstrong (guitars and keyboards), Nick D'Virgilio (drums), Dave Gregory (guitars), Rachel Hall (violin and vocals), David Longdon (vocals, flute, keyboards and guitars), Danny Manners (keyboards and bass), Rikard Sjöblom (keyboards and guitars) and Gregory Spawton (bass, guitars and keyboards). Until 2009, the band were mostly as a studio project band headed by Gregory Spawton and Andy Poole (who left 1 January 2018) with changing line-ups and guest musicians. They have released eleven studio albums and three EPs.

After starting out as an independent band, Big Big Train were signed to Giant Electric Pea from 1993 to 1998 and distributed their releases through their own website. Since their sixth album The Underfall Yard, which received critical acclaim from the progressive rock community, a more stable lineup has been established, and the band performed their first live concerts in 17 years at Kings Place, London, in August 2015. The gigs were voted Event Of The Year by the readers of Prog magazine. Stone & Steel, a Blu-ray featuring the 2014 rehearsals at Real World Studios and four of the songs performed at Kings Place, was released on 21 March 2016. Big Big Train were the winners of the Breakthrough Award at the Progressive Music Awards held at Kew Gardens, London on 3 September 2013, and have been nominated in several other categories in recent years. The band's latest studio albums, Grimspound and The Second Brightest Star, were released April and June 2017 respectively. Big Big Train's most recent live performances were at Cadogan Hall, London, in September/October 2017, and they will be headliners at The Night Of The Prog festival in Lorelei, Germany, on 13 July 2018.