The Black Country duo, vocalist Joe Hicklin and drummer Callum Moloney, have spent the last few years tearing through the UK’s underground with a sound that fuses working‑class fury, bleak humour and bruised tenderness. Now they return with a full UK winter headline tour and a brand‑new EP, O’JOY!, out now via SO Recordings.

It arrives with a stark animated video for its closing track “HOTEL”, a song that captures the band at their most exposed, exhausted, reflective, and painfully human.

O’JOY! isn’t a B‑sides dump; it’s a reckoning. The ten‑track collection gathers the songs that didn’t fit the emotional architecture of BIG SPECIAL’s first two albums, the “fallen parts”, as the band put it. Tracks that were too dark, too heavy, too sprawling, or simply too raw to sit comfortably elsewhere.

Rather than leave them behind, Hicklin and Moloney dragged them back into the studio, reshaping them into a standalone body of work that reflects everything they’ve lived through so far.

In their own words, the EP is:

“A smirking eye roll to dread and discomfort… Shit out the demons, turn them into music, then get everyone together for a big old bash. Then crack on. As you were.”

It’s a mission statement that sums up BIG SPECIAL perfectly, catharsis through noise, honesty over polish, and a refusal to hoard material for some future payday. When O’JOY! lands, the slate is wiped clean. Time to move on.

The EP’s closing track, “HOTEL”, arrives with a new animated video and a story that mirrors the band’s evolution. Written years before they ever hit the touring circuit, the song has taken on new layers as their lives have shifted.

What began as a meditation on mental health, medication and shifting states of mind now feels eerily like a tour diary, the strange intimacy of temporary rooms, the loneliness between shows, the emotional toll of constant motion.

The band say:

“It’s been interesting for us to see how songs we’ve written can even change meaning to us over time… The main way to relate is to be honest and open.”

It’s a fitting end to O’JOY! — not a triumphant finale, but a quiet acceptance. A deep breath before the next sprint.

Before the winter headline run, BIG SPECIAL are set for a packed summer of festivals including TRNSMT, Boomtown, Beautiful Days, Valley, Moseley Folk Festival and more still to be announced. They’ll also head to North America this autumn, playing headline shows and joining Lambrini Girls as special guests.

The winter UK headline tour promises to be their biggest yet — a culmination of years of graft, grit and growth.

BIG SPECIAL’s rise has been rapid, but never rushed. Their work is rooted in lived experience, class, community, frustration, hope, and O’JOY! feels like a necessary purge before the next chapter begins.

They’ve emptied the clip. Now they’re ready to reload.

June 12th: Bradninch Music Festival, Devon, UK
June 20th: TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
July 13th: James Borrer Tribute Concert, O2 Indigo, London, UK
July 31st: Valley Fest, Chew Magna, Bristol, UK
August 14th: Boomtown Festival, Hampshire, UK
August 22nd: Beautiful Days Festival, Devon, UK
August 30th: Dreamland, Margate, UK (w/ Babyshambles)
September 4th: Moseley Folk Festival, Birmingham, UK

WINTER HEADLINE TOUR

November 24th Stoke Sugarmill
November 25th Cardiff Tramshed
November 26th Liverpool Arts Club
November 27th Hull Polar Bear
November 29th Edinburgh Liquid Rooms
November 30th Scunthorpe Cafe Indie
December 1st Blackpool Bootleg Special
December 2nd Hebden Bridge Trades Club
December 3rd Sheffield Crookes Social Club
December 5th Coventry Kasbah
December 6th Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms
December 8th Oxford Bullingdon
December 9th Brighton Chalk
December 10th Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
December 11th Exeter Cavern Club

Tickets to all shows available HERE

O’JOY! Track list

PLAINTIVE NATIVE
ONLY FREE WHEN SLEEPING
LAZARUS
THE WAKE
FAMILY BONES
GARDEN OF FOOLS
SLUGLIFE
DRAGGED UP A HILL (and thrown down the other side)
HOTEL

O’JOY! is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl via SO Recordings. Stream it HERE