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| Liner Notes |  |
by David Sinclair (July 1991) |
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| What do you do when you are a group that has created one of the truly distinctive sounds in rock and been at the top of your professions for eight years? For Big Country the answer is to take the romantic character and unshakeable integrity that lies at the core of your work, and move on.
For too long the emotionally charged essense of Big Country's music has been obscured by lazy and cliched talk of bagpipe guitars and checked-shirt rock. The application of an American mainstream production gloss to their last new album, Peace In Our Time, was a move which singer and guitarist Stuart Adamson now accepts as being "at a tangent to the plot." The accompanying pilgrimage to Moscow, in the peace-making spirit of glasnost and the unforgiving glare of the Western media, was both exhilarating and exhausting. In the wake of that momentous adventure a new Big Country has emerged. In July 1989 drummer Mark Brzezicki departed for the shadowy pastures of the session world. The remaining three members of Big Country—Stuart Adamson, Tony Butler (bass, backing vocals) and Bruce Watson (guitar)—closed ranks and, inevitably revised working practices. With Brzezicki now in the role of a session drummer on No Place Like Home the intricate mosaic of syncopations and galloping tom tom tattoos that was such a recognizable feature of the old Big Country sound has gone. In its place a more conventional set of rhythmic patterns is sketched with new vigorous from a palette of bold primary colors. The howling slide guitars which graces the opening bars of "Republican Party Reptile"—more dustbowl blues than highland fling—sets the tone for a collection that quarries deep into the rock face and taps into traditions of country, folk and southern blues with an authority that transcended the dictates of either formula or fashion. "I grew up playing R' n 'B music," Adamson says, recalling the days before The Skids when he was a 15 year old apprentice in Dunfermline-based covers group Tattoo. "So it's still completely natural for me to play it now." Big Country has used mandolins and acoustic guitars before, but the banjo and honky tonk piano which contributes to the mellow celtic-country swing of "Beautiful People" is undoubtedly a first. With its crisp, open-ended production, No Place Like Home is an album of bountiful extremes, encompassing the simple voice-and-piano ballad of "Ships," the belting instrumental coda of "Into the Fire," and the mounting paranoia of the Middle Eastern scenario of "Hostage," wit its grainy, desert-baked rift and neurotic wah wah embellishments. "We're trying to do traditional things in a contemporary style," is how Adamson sums the album up. "It is a new chapter, but for me it's always been about writing songs that make a difference in people's lives, songs that connect with people. There's no master plan. This is what we do now." |
