Black Country duo Big Special are already making a name for themselves as one of the most prolific names in modern UK post-punk. Since their official formation in 2022, vocalist Joe Hicklin and drummer Callum Moloney have released two albums, an EP, and have worked with the likes of John Grant and Sleaford Mods, and it seems they have no intention of slowing down. Their second album, ‘National Average’, was released just last July, and their first post-album single, ‘SLUGLIFE’, has just arrived at the back of it.

Big Special aren’t a particularly maximalist group, but on ‘SLUGLIFE’, they’ve traded most of that brash punk energy for a sound that’s more stripped back and reserved. While earlier singles like ‘THIS HERE AIN’T WATER’ and ‘DESPERATE BREAKFAST’ were loud, frantic, and subtly chaotic, ‘SLUGLIFE’ is a far more laid-back and meditative track. It’s plucky acoustic guitars blend with the mesmerising drum beat as Hicklin bounces between his usual punk-poetry stream of consciousness lyricism, delivered with a softer demeanour than usual, and bursts of soulful exclamations of “I just need a little time / We’re getting there”.

‘SLUGLIFE’ isn’t the only time that the duo has taken this more laid-back approach to songwriting. The 2024 single 'BLACK DOG / WHITE HORSE' is a similarly soulful take on the current post-punk scene, though that track got most of its power from how it builds to its outro, while ‘SLUGLIFE’ ebbs and flows between different musical motifs. It’s that movement between pieces that lends the track a dizzying quality that goes with the lyrical theme of “working through the self-hate that can come through hard times”.

This latest single from Big Special is an interesting one. It sits in an unusual place between their high-energy art-punk barn burners, as a smoother, jammier track, but that atypical placement doesn’t make ‘SLUGLIFE’ any less enjoyable. If anything, it makes it easier to appreciate as a reflective deviation. Hicklin and Moloney are about to head back out on tour in the UK and Ireland throughout February and March following their European tour late last year, and while we’ve heard little of what the rest of the year holds for them, it wouldn’t be shocking if ‘SLUGLIFE’ was only the beginning of their 2026 plans.