release date: Sep. 9, 1988
format: vinyl (gatefold - MERH 130)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,56]
producer: Peter Wolf
label: Mercury - nationality: Scotland, UK
Track highlights: 1. "King of Emotion" - 2. "Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys)" - 3. "Thousand Yard Stare" - 4. "From Here to Eternity" - 6. "Peace in Our Time" - 8. "River of Hope" - 10. "I Could Be Happy Here"
4th studio album by Big Country following more than two years after The Seer (Jul. 1986). The softer style from the predecessor is more accentuated on this. Stuart Adamson is writer of all ten songs with Bruce Watson contributing as co-composer on three, including track #7, which is credited the band in unison, and the whole album is produced in Los Angeles with Austrian-American producer Peter Wolf, who had made a name producing and arranging for various pop-artists, e.g. Starship, Kenny Loggins, (synth-pop band) Wang Chung, (synth-pop artist) El DeBarge, (Brazilian pop and disco artist) Sérgio Mendes. Wolf is furthermore credited on keyboards.
Stylewise, the album doesn't fall far from '86 album but still appears as a softer and more polished album. I do recall when it came out, and I had turned my back on the band, which I experienced as too mainstream and without substantial edge. In retrospect, I like it a great deal more, although, I still find it the band's so far least favourable album with an aim to please an American audience, something which failed somewhat, but you have to hand it to the late Stuart Adamson: he was a musical wizard, both as a songwriter as well as an iconic guitarist. It's still celtic rock but with bolder inspiration from a broad world of pop / rock where Elton John, Bryan Adams, Eric Clapton, and Bruce Springsteen reign.
Not the band's best but still worth a spin or two on behalf of Stuart Adamson.
[ allmusic.com 2,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 3 / 5, Record Mirror 2 / 5 stars ]
