release date: Sep. 16, 1991
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,38]
producer: Pat Moran
label: Vertigo - nationality: Scotland, UK
Track highlights: 1. "We're Not in Kansas" - 3. "Dynamite Lady" - 4. "Keep on Dreaming" - 5. "Beautiful People" - 9. "You, Me and the Truth" - 10. "Comes a Time"
5th studio album by Big Country following three years after Peace in Our Time (Sep. 1988). Before this, drummer Mark Brzezicki had left the band in early '90 and prior to the recordings of the album but he nevertheless works as sessions drummer on the album.
Stylewise, the album comes out as something aiming at the American market - a bit like the predecessor, where the Celtic rock tone has been put in the background of a bolder r&b appeal. In terms of sales numbers, the album didn't deliver - neither nationally, nor as something for the American market - and it simply took the band further into anonymity. Following poor album sales the band was released from its contract with Mercury and the band subsequently disbanded for a short period of time, until Stuart Adamson returned to Watson and Butler, free from label control and with an opportunity to do what they themselves believed was their path in music, they saw a chance to give it another try.
I have only come across this album in retrospect and I see the dead-end they had round up in at this point of their career. The album is, as in all cases with music by Stuart Adamson, far from without potential. It just wasn't arranged, produced, and mixed in the most original way. The best tune here, "We're Not in Kansas" also made it to the follow-up in a an even better arranged version alongside "Ships". The album is not the place to start when looking this band up, and it remains a lowest point in the band's total discography of eight studio albums featuring founding member Stuart Adamson.
[ 👎allmusic.com 2 / 5 stars ]