Big Scary - Four Seasons (LP)

Big Scary’s Four Seasons remains one of those clever early statements that tells you everything about a band’s instincts before they go on to make their big leap. The Melbourne duo of Tom Iansek and Joanna Syme spent 2010 rolling out four EPs tied to the calendar, then gathered them as Four Seasons. It is not a gimmick. The set moves like real weather, with light shifting, moods snapping, and sudden bursts of heat. You can hear the pair getting bolder from one season to the next, testing how far piano, guitar and drums can carry a song before they need to add anything else.

Autumn leans into low light and heavy air. Iansek’s voice sits close to the mic, almost conspiratorial, while piano carries most of the weight and the guitars creep in like fog. Winter strips things right back, the duo playing with space, silence and the cold crack of sticks on rims. Syme’s drumming is unshowy but decisive, the kind that pushes a song forward without crowding it. When Spring arrives, the melodies open up and the harmonies feel looser, as if the windows have finally gone up. By Summer, they are turning up the amps and letting the fuzz run a little wild. It is still the same band, still two people locking into a strong pulse, but the colours are bolder and the choruses lift.

The detail that makes it work is the sound of rooms. Four Seasons has that honest, early Big Scary tone where you can tell microphones were placed with care and left to soak up the natural ring of instruments. Iansek has always had a producer’s ear and you can hear it here in the way the piano is voiced and the drums are allowed to breathe. There is a restraint to the arrangements that keeps the focus on performance. When they do add little touches, they land. A bit of overdrive at the right moment. A vocal stack that blooms in the last chorus. They never give in to the temptation to layer for the sake of it, so when things swell, you feel it.

What makes the seasonal concept more than a neat frame is the writing. The lyrics sit in that zone between domestic detail and bigger emotional weather. Small turns of phrase do the heavy lifting, and Iansek’s delivery has the sort of warmth that makes even the pricklier lines go down easy. Syme answers with drum parts that leave air where the story needs it. You can tell they are listening to each other. It is a genuine musical conversation, the kind that defines the best Big Scary songs for years to come on Vacation, Not Art and beyond.

Looking back, Four Seasons feels like a hinge in their catalogue. It set up the confidence and curiosity that would carry into their 2011 debut album, but it also stands on its own as a full, self-contained cycle. There is a patience to these recordings that a lot of bands only find later. The pair trust a simple piano figure to hold for two, three minutes. They know when to flip from whisper to full lift. That poise is why these tracks still hold up when you put them next to later Big Scary albums on vinyl. The DNA is all here.

If you are crate digging, Four Seasons is the one that turns a casual listener into a fan. It is also the record that people who saw them early will light up about, the one that played on share-house stereos as the air cooled and warmed again. For buyers who like to browse a Melbourne record store or hunt for vinyl records Australia wide, it is the kind of release you ask about at the counter. You might not always find Four Seasons vinyl in the racks, but it is worth keeping on a wish list, and there are plenty of ways to buy Big Scary records online if you get the itch. While you are at it, spinning the rest of the Big Scary vinyl run makes sense, but this one is a lovely way in. It captures the pair in motion, not yet smoothing the edges, still following instincts that would shape their career.

Four Seasons is a time capsule and a proof of concept in one. It rewards front to back listening and it sounds especially good loud enough to feel the kick drum in the room. Put it on when the weather changes and see which side you fall for first.