“Formerly known as Paul McCartney and Buffalo Wings,” Middle Tennessee-based goof-punk, grunge-pop trio Big, If True started playing and making music together in 2018, but after several suggestions, according to the band, they changed the band’s name before their first full-length release in 2021 (and released a statement, “sorry we’re not better”).
It was right when the 13-year Cicada brood were in their 6–8-week spree (Brood XIX, of the two Cicada broods that emerged in Middle Tennessee in 2024) that Big, If True released its sophomore follow-up EP, I Can See My House from Here, in April 2024, borderlining on a full-length, 12-track album of sophomoric wisdom just short of the 30-minute marker (and establishing the only feasible form of time-travel known to humanity these days: revisiting).
Kicking off the brilliance, I’ve got 99 holes in my wall / I want to fix them all one day, Big, If True frontman Sean Strickland lyricizes, backed by Jack Brunson on bass and Ben Scheffler on drums, in I Can See My House from Here’s opening track, “99 Holes,” revisiting mistakes made in the past.
“Anger Bananagement,” continues an exploration of the concept, revisiting mistakes with a more mature head, and showing how sophomoric lyrics are supposed to be dealt with (by time travel from a better time), already establishing comparison to the aggressive jauntiness of Blink’s 182’s Dude Ranch (1997), an album with a good mix of musical seriousness in combination with the goofiness that’s carried that group from the ’90s late-grade-school/high-school-underclassman fandom into the world tours they’re consequently on now.
“Lake Murray” follows as an awesome jammer to keep heads reeling, as well as banging, reminiscing about day-to-day high school life, but with the vocalist recalling what will have happened at those bus stops at later dates and the inclusion of future memories, such as where we got arrested for possession, resisting, and littering. . . .
“Habit Creature” and “Less Than Zero” (I’m feeling nothing, nothing at all, a lost and wayward teen anthem) both stand as hard punkers, with guitar strums as loud and heavy as any grungy metal stuff around, and, thankfully, with some punk emphasis on the bass; actually these turn into a three-song suite with the following, “206,” in a full-fledged “letting-go/getting over the past” rocker.
Big, If True really does harbor the punk energy that Rancid did in their early ’90s heyday, bringing punk back to the forefront, just to keep it out there.
“Sleep,” utilizes staple punk roughness—blatantly a screw-you song—while “Quitting Is for Quitters” comes from the teenage, first-job, fast-food workers in all of us, just going back to touch some annoyances and applicable to the stupidities of any situation.
The album’s thematic track, “I guess THIS is growing up,” considers all of these phases, flowing together through life, making it all up as a whole. It’s like coming to the realization you can use discretion, and all things are okay in moderation. It’s just leveling out the chaos through actually thinking about the past in wiser times.
“Cicada Farm” nicely ties this whole thing together in as “adult” a way as possible and as ’90s an alt-rock feel as possible.
Big, If True exhibits a brilliant time travel technique, the equivalent of: “I re-watched that movie in adulthood, and it has a completely different meaning,” and has released a great pop-punk album that genuinely speaks to the reason we’re all the way we are, more so than we really think or want to think.
The band’s Facebook page touts they’re “music for people that un-ironically enjoyed Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace,” but let’s keep in mind that specific movie (and Howard the Duck) were precursors to enhancing Lucas’ much bigger project, Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic—a now-major company, getting its bearings straight within those releases at the time.
Find Big, if True’s I Can See My House from Here at bigiftrue.bandcamp.com.
