Main menu
Fretplay home Submit tabs

Big Country
Big Country tabs Big Country discography

Channels
Guitar channel Bass channel Guitar videos Reviews

Message Forum
Guitar forum Bass forum Bands and artists Promote your band Recent discussions All categories

Fretplay.com

Big Country guitar tabs

CD reviews

Peace in Our Time

Big Country - Peace in Our Time Audio CD

A fair review of the Big Country "Peace in Our Time" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Big Country reviews here, or go back to the Big Country tabs.

Band: Big Country
Title: Peace in Our Time
Rating:

Release Date: 1990-10-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: King of Emotion 2: Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys) 3: Thousand Yard Stare 4: From Here to Eternity 5: Everything I Need 6: Peace in Our Time 7: Time for Leaving 8: River of Hope 9: In This Place 10: I Could Be Happy Here 11: Travellers 12: When the Drum Beats 13: Starred and Crossed 14: Longest Day

Overproduced, but a solid effort
Like most, I was turned on to them with their hit single "In A Big Country". I have been a Big Country fan for many, many years. That trademark bagpipe guitar sound was just too cool. "The Crossing" remains, in my mind, their best album. They continued with this same sound over two more records and had a decent amount of success, mainly in Europe. "Peace In Our Time" offered a new producer (Peter Wolf) and a new, slick sound. This record was pretty much panned by most critics and fans, but I really like it. Yeah, maybe it is over-produced and Peter Wolf tries to make them sound like some major pop band. But, the quality of the songs. . . . the songwriting is fantastic. Big anthems ("King Of Emotion", "Peace In Our Time"), great ballads ("Everything I Need") and catchy chorus' ("From Here To Eternity", "River Of Hope"). Newer pressings have also added the excellent instrumental "The Travellers".

Yeah, the signature sound is gone. Maybe Stuart Adamson, lead singer and main songwriter, listened to his critics too much and changed more than most fans would have liked. But, like any great band, you have to evolve. And, I think this was a stepping stone for the band, as was their next record, "No Place Like Home". Listen to U2's "Joshua Tree" and then go listen to "Achtung Baby". Their sound has totally changed. While Big Country's evolution wasn't that dramatic, they were able to hit their stride by the time they released "The Buffalo Skinners". They continued to release great records until their swan song "Driving To Damascus". If you want to hear a great Big Country record, pick up "The Crossing" or "Driving To Damascus". If you want to hear some music by a great rock band, pick up "Peace In Our Time". .

A more 'conventional' sounding Big Country
They have indeed taken on a much more 'conventional' pop-rock sound. This album sounds a good deal less 'exotic' than The Crossing, Steeltown, and The Seer. But this album is definitely not bad. In fact, it's pretty good. Big Country is probably one of the few bands that could make such a change without going down the toilet.

Big Country's last great album indeed
I rather agree with the guy from the Philippines: This was Big Country's last GOOD album. Pay no mind to what the critical reviewer said below. The nineties were a disappointment with BC sounding way different than their Celtic roots. I remember how deflated I felt when I bought the LP No Place Like Home. There was nothing reminiscent of The Crossing or The Seer on that album, save the mournful ballad Ships.
There are a bunch of great songs on Peace in our Time: the title track and the first three songs on side one, all of which were released as singles in South Africa. King of Emotion and Broken Heart received the most airplay. Man, I can still remember the goosebumps I got hearing the chorus of Broken Heart for the first time, Brzezicki's crashing drums and the interplay of guitars. Yeah, this was Big Country!
Thousand Yard Stare is a haunting song with an eerie but very effective hook, the lyrics being a story of a young man returning from the war with that distant, vacant look in his eyes. It also has a catchy chorus. Peace in Our Time is a anthem of hope for a broken world. I also enjoyed River of Hope on side two, but it seems not to reach the heights it hints at. I was looking for a song like The Sailor from the Seer album or The Storm from the Crossing.
BC may have changed producers here, but it probably made their music more refined. These were subtle changes. Unfortunately, they weren't satisfied and for their next album went on in a whole other direction, trying to be more blues-rock than their signature Celtic rock sound. They lost their desire or their ability to write good melodies.

Last great album from Big Country

Some people might not like this album simply because it deviates from the bagpipe-heavy sound of other great BC albums like The Crossing, Steeltown and The Seer. I probably have worn out the vinyl grooves to this fourth Big Country album I bought way back in 1989 I think.

But groups do mature and try something new for a change. This album is it! Except for the first track, all songs are great like "Broken Heart (13 Valleys)", "From Here To Eternity", I Could Be happy Here", "In This Place" and most specially "Eveything I Need". Hearing this song sends chills down my spine with its haunting melody.

Listening to these songs gives me visions of landscapes from different places around the world. Be it the Scottish highlands or visons of peacefully lying on the beach and staring at the sea.

No anthemic rock choruses for this album, which is a refreshing change. This album do have some of the bagpipe sound but only sparingly and that is a welcome change from the previous albums.
Stuart's lyrics and message is as optimistic and positive as the previous albums. Maybe he should have ended Big Country with this one than fade away in the 90's. This should be BC's swan song.

I don't care much about the 4 extra tracks on this CD re-issue. They are not in league with the mood and theme of the album. Just listen to the original album.

Here are my favorite BC albums and my ratings from 1 to 5:
1. The Seer - 5
2. Peace In Our Time - 5
3. Steeltown - 4
4. The Crossing - 4.

Buy this album before Linkin Park, Korn and Limp Bizkit take control of the major labels and delete this item in press! :-)

Don't just take my word for it. If in doubt, try to listen to this album before buying at your local CD shop. Enjoy!.

The album that killed Big Country
They were a group I called my own, while all my friends seemed to dwell on U2, Duran Duran, or The Cure, Big Country was my fave, and pretty much stayed number one for me, until this album came out. Big Country was my favorite group for years after first hearing them in '83. Talk about a disappointment!!!

While Big Country did take a small drop off getting a little too poppy sounding with their album "The Seer" in late '86, they also made some improvements with "The Seer" by bring back some more traditional Big Country Celtic style which kind of left them a little when they did "Steeltown. " However, nothing could prepare me for this flop. Simply put, Big Country picked the wrong producer. Peter Wolf had no business producing this album, nor any of Big Country's for that matter. Even Big Counry admitted later that Peter Wolf was probably not the right guy for this project (understatement of their careers!). Nowhere is this more obvious then when you hear the songs BC produced on their own for some of their B-side songs to this album. In fact the songs on this CD - "When A Drum Beats," "The Longest Day," "Travaler," and "Stared And Crossed" were not on the origenal "Peace in Our Time" album, and were all produced by BC and recorded around the same time as the Peter Wolf produced songs. There were other songs too that were produced by BC around the same time the album "Peace In Our Time" was recorded like "Promised Land" and "Over The Border" which though different sounding, still sound much more like BC then tracks PW produced. This tells you something - that these songs that PW produced could have been good had Big Country stuck with a good producer like Steve Lillywhite. While the tracks BC produced where on the raw side, they sounded like you would generally expect BC to sound on there album following "The Seer". . . different, but good, not different, and BAD! Keeping much of their signature sound, though transitionary.

Big Country's great talents are totally suppressed, and the songs squandered on this album. The only song I like all the way through is "13 Valley's" and while the song "Peace in Our Time" shows flashes of greatness, it falls far short of its potential. Obviously complements of Peter Wolf!

Unfortunately, this marked the down fall of Big Country, as they never fully recovered from this flop of an album, and while coming out with some good music here and there, it was always very inconsistant going into the 90's and beyond. I must blame much of this on Big Country for buying into the criticism of being a gimic band from the beginning, as many UK bands from the early 80's were acused of being, mainly by US critics (wow, what a surprise, jealous bastards!) If BC would have just became proud of there early signature sound that so many people loved them for, me included, instead of feeling guilty about it and moving away from it, they would have been a much longer lasting success, but instead they succeded in convincing themselves that they must sound like everyone else to be genuine. Unfortunately, most of the good UK groups bought into this notion, more or less, but all you have to do is look at U2 to see that you can keep your signature sound and still evolve. Why do so many groups like Big Country thing in order to evolve, and mature, you must lose your signature sound? I will never undersand this!

If you are new to BC, go with "The Crossing" or "Steeltown," their two first full albums, and their best! Stay clear of "Peace In Our Time, and if you are a major BC fan, my advice for you is to REALLY stay away from this one, as it is not Big Country, but "just a shadow of the album it should be!".

You can see a complete list of all Big Country discography, or go back to the Big Country tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.