release date: Dec. 1981
format: digital (17 x File, MP3) (2009 reissue)
[album rate: 2,5 / 5] [2,48]
producer: Russell Webb
label: Virgin Records - nationality: Scotland, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Blood and Soil" - 5. "Iona" - 7. "Brothers" - 11. "Fields"
4th and final studio album by Skids. After releasing The Absolute Game (1980), the band was reduced to a duo with only Richard Jobson left as founding member. Stuart Adamson had been the band's backbone as primary musical composer, and with only Jobson handling lead vocal and Webb as bassist, the two made use of a large number of additional musicians to finalise the album. Among these were prominent artists like Mike Oldfield (playing keyboards), and Alan Rankine (guitar) and Billy Mackenzie of The Associates (vocals). As a consequence of the band's situation, the style is very different from the first three albums. The original vinyl issue counts eleven tracks (tracks #1-11 in digital format). The album has been released in various versions, some of which has alternate tracklisting, but the 2009 extended reissue comes with the normalised track order in addition to six bonus tracks (all alternate versions of album songs).
The album isn't all bad, but as a homogeneous collection of songs, it's basically more strange than good. It has interesting aspects and ideas, some have industrial currents, but as a musical contribution to Scottish new wave it basically fails flat. Furthermore, to call this an album by Skids is in a way to extend the conception of the band with one founding member remaining. Mostly, it has been reduced to nothing more than Jobson's prolonged project. At the point of the release, Stuart Adamson had joined a new act called Big Country.
Jobson and Webb would eventually dissolve Skids in 1982, and later that year the two formed the band The Armoury Show.
In 2007 Jobson managed to reassemble Skids with various musicians to play a scheduled three gigs in memory of Stuart Adamson. The new formation of Skids played again in 2009 and 2010, so it seems Jobson likes touring with Skids again playing the old songs.
[ allmusic.com 2 / 5 stars ]
