Hide your eyes from the land where I lie cold

Next!

The Seer (1986)

This is another one I purchased as soon as it came out - but, for some unclear reason, it was the last one of theirs I ever bought (maybe this journey will help me understand). I think I still like this album but I don't believe I've listened to it in decades, so it will be good to catch up with it.

Side One

1. Look Away
This is very much up their anthemic sing-along street - no complaints from me about that!

2. The Seer
This is an interesting one - it features Kate Bush because she's not done a lot of collaboration over the years. I'd always wondered how it came about - but five seconds on the internet tells me that apparently they asked and she said "yes", so I guess that solves that mystery. Kate provides an interesting mix of sounds on this but hers and Stuart's voices work well together - I'm not sure we needed 5:25 of it though.

3. The Teacher
This was the only track of the first side I didn't remember from the title alone - but it came back to me with the first few chords. And it's one I like without loving.

4. I Walk The Hill
We're back in "Look Away" territory here, but not quite as catchy.

5. Eiledon
And we're back in the wailing woman territory here, but this time it's June Miles-Kingston (who's had quite an interesting career - she played drums on Feargal Sharkey's "A Good Heart" and she sang the original version of "No More I Love Yous", better known for the later Annie Lennox cover). Back to the song - I like it!

Side Two

1. One Great Thing
And we're back in "Look Away" territory again, but this is maybe better - and it's also pleasingly optimistic (which is pretty rare for Big Country). There's some fine guitar work on it as well.

2. Hold The Heart
A complete change of pace here - it's a simple, plaintive love song. And it's nicely done - someone like Karine Polwart would do a cracking cover of this.

3. Remembrance Day
Another catchy chorus - there's plenty to sing along with here! And this one also features June Miles-Kington as well, so has some nice warbling on it.

4. The Red Fox
This is another one I didn't remember from the title alone, but again it didn't take more than a couple of bars for it to all to come flooding back. It features a weird tempo change towards the end, but apart from that doesn't have a lot to make it stand out.

5. The Sailor
Another slow one - this almost sounds like a nursery rhyme. It's interesting because it's different, but not one of my favourites.

Yeah, I still like this album - it's core competency is the typical BC anthem, but (as with all their albums so far) there's enough variety to keep things interesting. Picking songs for the playlist, I think I'll go for "Look Away", "Eiledon", "One Great Thing" and "Hold The Heart" but "The Seer" and "Remembrance Day" can consider themselves unlucky not to make the grade. As a whole, I think the album stands up well, but I think I prefer Steeltown and it doesn't have the newness of The Crossing, so I'm guessing I just thought my Big Country journey had peaked - it will be interesting to see what I think about the next album.

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album but it tells us that it's considered by some to be their "most Scottish" album because it refers to a lot of events in Scottish history including the Highland Clearances, the 1752 Appin murder and the Brahan Seer - all of which, of course, I've never heard of. Interestingly, there were two mixes of the album - the original one by the producer (Robin Millar) and the band was rejected by the label as not commercial enough. So Walter Turbitt was brought in and produced something the band didn't like - and I think you can guess which one the label used. The original mix has never seen the light of day, except for the single version of "Look Away" which was released before the album came out - if you compare the single and album versions you can hear a difference, but I'd be hard pushed to say which one I prefer. Completely coincidentally, "Look Away" was their highest charting single here, getting to #7 and also got to #1 in Ireland - it also has some amusingly 80s clothes on the cover.

Critically, the album was received well enough, without anyone going overboard for it, although Rolling Stone said it was possibly their strongest to date - the internet seems to generally agree it's in the top three, but it rarely gets top billing. Commercially, it got to #2 here (as did their best-of in '90, with only Steeltown getting to #1) but it did get to #1 in that happiest of countries - Finland. #7 in New Zealand was its next best placing, with it getting to #59 in the US (which was better than Steeltown fared).

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent copy for three quid but if you want the reissued vinyl from '23 it's going to set you back £32 - which doesn't seem too steep for a recent vinyl, except that you can pick up an original copy for three quid, so why would you bother? Either way, I don't need to because I've got a copy sat upstairs - I really should listen to my vinyl more often because I enjoy the process (except for singles, they're just too much of a faff). However, even though I relied on streaming for this listen, it was an enjoyable revisit - but maybe not quite as enjoyable as either of my previous revisits.

Steeltown - possibly their best?