Most Things - Bigtime (2025) Hi-Res

With an eccentric, poetic line in minimal rock, London bass and drums duo Most Things release their debut album Bigtime on tastemaker label So Young Records. Marrying the compassionate observational wit of Richard Dawson with a sound somewhere between Minutemen and Television Personalities, the album’s ten songs explore family relationships, mental health and life in the city.

The project of London-born bassist/vocalist Tom Phillips and New York-born drummer Malachy O’Neill, the pair met as students in London after being introduced by Phillips’ then housemate Sabrina Fuentes – singer in acclaimed punk band Pretty Sick.

Bigtime is a London album. Chronicling Phillips’ experiences growing up in the city, as the only child to his single mother, it illustrates its shops, pubs and bustle with humour and warmth, but also considers its troubles: from violence to threadbare public services.

Despite its continued relevance, indie music rarely seems to communicate our times. Its sounds are often so reliant on the past that they feel a step apart from our modern concerns. It’s an issue typical of genres but one that also speaks to how the sound of a soul isn’t necessarily rooted in its instruments. In the seventies Pere Ubu’s David Thomas called his bands future punk sound ‘industrial folk’, he envisioned his bands mix of psychobabble theatrics and jittery guitars as the folk songs for a modern America. It’s a view that Most Things‘ debut Bigtime bears an odd kinship to. To put it simply, Most Things make a sound that captures the spirit of something old but adapted for the modern age. It could be labelled with dull clichés such as post-Brexit jangle or industrial twee pop, but those would only dim its subdued spark. Bigtime is indie music for the age of endless indeed applications, relationships that crumble in the silence of overpriced London apartments, and friendships formed on dull tube commutes.

The band’s beauty lies in the simplicity of their setup. The two-piece of Tom Grey and Malachy O’Neil craft pop tracks that mix the catchy excellence of c86 indie pop with the intensity of 90s skramz through drum and bass alone. While other duos often lean into the combined rhythms to focus on heaviness and intensity, Grey brilliantly leans into the instrument’s melodic opportunities. His bass bounces as much as it grooves, practically ricocheting off O’Neil’s drum as if the strings are caught between the cymbals. The effect creates an odd jangle contrasting with the instrument’s metallic sheen, while most indie pop sounds are pastoral. Most Things sound distinctly urban. This is pop music made out of telephone wires and concrete.

Lead single ‘Shops’ melds sound and space, the motorik thrum of the bass combines with the mathy clatter of drums to create a melodic chaos that keenly simulates the atmosphere of a midday walk to the shops in a cluttered city. Grey’s delivery is dulled and childlike, carrying the same mildly depressive British whimsy as Television Personalities or The Raincoats. Like them, he keenly mixes the observational with the poetic lines like “We touch teeth past use by dates” and “Wait till you hit the moon/Like a bug on a windscreen”, managing to hit on a mundane surrealness that feels at once whimsical and dulled. Thankfully, Grey’s delivery never slinks into deadpan cliches, his tone coming across confused and curious rather than bored.

His vocal strength lies similarly to the bass in its capacity for contrast through desperate moans on ‘Head and Shoulders’ and bleary-eyed screams on ‘Deal’. These moments burst past the whimsicality into desperation when he screeches out “I’ve got nothing important to do” on ‘Deal’ after begging for philosophical answers from a sausage roll, it comes across as tragic rather than comedic. The cutesy conversations of daily life break away to show an absurd emptiness lying within. These screams aren’t Grey’s alone; the backing vocals on ‘Cuts’ and ‘Roundabout’ touch that same desperation. They echo out of the band’s tight rhythmic position like lost souls trying to rattle their way out of the ordered chaos that is modern city living.

But Most Things’ greatest strength isn’t their lyrics nor vocals, or even their performances, but rather their incredible musical chemistry. The band carries a similar approach to Minutemen in their capability to effortlessly shift rhythms and timings in a manner that feels simultaneously structured and improvisational. The albums core sound of Grey’s ass slinking across O’Neils rapid rattling beats is explored thoroughly. At points, it’s percussive, the instruments bouncing off Grey’s words at other points dancey and sometimes even dirgey. Often it’ll move in a slackerish free form mode before coalescing into an exquisite conclusion. On ‘Horse’, the pair breeze around a series of rhythms before coming to a hook-laden conclusion in its excellent final few minutes. ‘Lucky’ takes a similar approach, eventually reaching a thrashing endpoint; likewise, ‘Somers Town’ uses its conclusion to amp up the intensity, though this time through a near-vocal-less disroted dirge. Each time, it sounds like the band is endlessly recalibrating the song, shifting its rhythms to fit its mood. But rather than appearing amateurish, it’s a keen reflection of the album’s time and place. The shifts in vocals, rhythms, and melody reflect the confusion of modern life with moments of brief profundity and misery articulating themselves out of the chaos. Yet despite the signs of comedy, Most Things never give in to being another slab of satirical post-punk. From its odes to Grey’s mother on ‘Head and Shoulders’ and ‘Challenger’ to its heartfelt shireks, Bigtime is an album that seeks beauty and pathos in the mundane rather than comedy. It’s not merely a forward-thinking indie album but a sincere one.