Peace In Our Time
	Produced by Peter Wolf
	Released on October 1988
	UK CHART POSITION #9 . . . US CHART POSITION #160
	Find it at GEMM
MERHC 130 cover [full foldout cover]

O n their fourth album, Peace In Our Time, Big Country toned down the e-bow attack and began playing songs that accentuated the guitar/bass/drums interplay that was always under the surface. Given how idiosyncratic the heroic e-bow guitars and Stuart Adamson’s passionate singing had become, Peace In Our Time sounded initially like Big Country was backing away from their own image, and maybe they were. Fist-clenched thunderbolts of fury are only sustainable for so long, and even fans would admit that playing everything like survival depended on it painted their songs in a draining sameness. There’s more “space” between the songs on Peace, which allows them to develop their own identities quickly: the war cry (“Peace In Our Time”), the sneaky sleeper (“Thousand Yard Stare”), the ballad (“Everything I Need”), and the little lump in the throat (“In This Place”). Lyrically, Adamson has less to say than The Crossing or Steeltown, or rather chooses to paint these sometimes painful vignettes in conversational language rather than the poetic sloganeering of old. The result is a more intimate album in some ways, though at the cost of fire. The quality of the material on this album (and the excess of material recorded during the same period) show that Big Country still had plenty of gas in their tank, but poor charting in the US suggested that the band’s fortunes were waning all the same. A kinder, gentler, more peaceful Big Country didn’t have the same place in the world as an angry Anglo novelty (“In A Big Country”), and American record companies resigned themselves to the fact that the band would always be something of an enigma to the big country across the ocean. Though they’d softened their attack, Peace In Our Time is hardly a dud, and fans should rally around it with time.

MERHC 130 picture sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. KING OF EMOTION
2. BROKEN HEART (THIRTEEN VALLEYS)
3. THOUSAND YARD STARE    (lyrics by Stuart Adamson, music by Stuart Adamson/Bruce Watson)
4. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY
5. EVERYTHING I NEED
6. PEACE IN OUR TIME
7. TIME FOR LEAVING    (lyrics by Stuart Adamson, music by Stuart Adamson/Bruce Watson/Tony Butler/Mark Brzezicki)
8. RIVER OF HOPE
9. IN THIS PLACE
10. I COULD BE HAPPY HERE    (lyrics by Stuart Adamson, music by Stuart Adamson/Bruce Watson)
    
    CD bonus tracks
    
11. THE TRAVELLERS
12. WHEN THE DRUM BEATS
13. STARRED AND CROSSED
14. LONGEST DAY
    
    All lyrics and music written by Stuart Adamson unless noted

CREDITS

STUART ADAMSON -- vocals, guitars, e-bow
MARK BRZEZICKI -- drums and percussion
TONY BUTLER -- bass, vocals, guitar
BRUCE WATSON -- guitars, mandolin, sitar, mouth organ, e-bow
Maxi Anderson -- additional vocals
Merry Clayton -- additional vocals
Donna Davidson -- additional vocals
Josh Phillips Gorse -- live keyboards
Ina Wolf -- additional vocals
Peter Wolf -- keyboards
Brian Malouf -- engineer, mixing
Jeremy Smith -- engineer
Paul Harrison -- sleeve design, design concept
Ian Grant -- design concept
Carol Sharp -- front cover photography
Terry O'Neill -- inside cover photography

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